Famous Hosts Poems by Famous Poets

These are examples of famous Hosts poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous hosts poems. These examples illustrate what a famous hosts poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).

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Lord Roberts

by Rudyard Kipling
 1914

He passed in the very battle-smoke
 Of the war that he had descried.
Three hundred mile of cannon spoke
 When the Master-Gunner died.

He passed to the very sound of the guns;
 But, before his eye grew dim,
He had seen the faces of the sons
 Whose sires had served with him,

He had touched their sword-hilts and greeted
 With the old sure...Read more of this...

The Old Issue

by Rudyard Kipling
 Here is nothing new nor aught unproven," say the Trumpets,
 "Many feet have worn it and the road is old indeed.
"It is the King--the King we schooled aforetime! "
 (Trumpets in the marshes-in the eyot at Runnymede!)

"Here is neither haste, nor hate, nor anger," peal the Trumpets,
 "Pardon for his penitence or pity for his fall.
"It is the King!"--inexorable...Read more of this...

Ode

by Philip Freneau
 GOD save the Rights of Man!
Give us a heart to scan
Blessings so dear:
Let them be spread around
Wherever man is found,
And with the welcome sound
Ravish his ear.

Let us with France agree,
And bid the world be free,
While tyrants fall!
Let the rude savage host
Of their vast numbers boast--
Freedom's almight trust
Laughs at them all!

Though hosts of slaves conspire
To quench fair Gallia's fire,
Still shall...Read more of this...

Psalm 80

by Isaac Watts
 The church's prayer under affliction; or, The vineyard of God wasted.

Great Shepherd of thine Israel,
Who didst between the cherubs dwell,
And lead the tribes, thy chosen sheep,
Safe through the desert and the deep;

Thy church is in the desert now,
Shine from on high and guide us through;
Turn us to thee, thy love restore,
We shall be saved and sigh no more.

Great God,...Read more of this...

The Jingo and the Minstrel

by Vachel Lindsay
 AN ARGUMENT FOR THE MAINTENANCE OF PEACE AND GOODWILL WITH THE JAPANESE PEOPLE

Glossary for the uninstructed and the hasty: Jimmu Tenno, ancestor of all the Japanese Emperors; Nikko, Japan's loveliest shrine; Iyeyasu, her greatest statesman; Bushido, her code of knighthood; The Forty-seven Ronins, her classic heroes; Nogi, her latest hero; Fuji, her most beautiful mountain.


"Now do you know of...Read more of this...

The Coastwise Lights

by Rudyard Kipling
 Our brows are bound with spindrift and the weed is on our knees;
Our loins are battered 'neath us by the swinging, smoking seas.
From reef and rock and skerry -- over headland, ness, and voe --
The Coastwise Lights of England watch the ships of England go!

Through the endless summer evenings, on the lineless, level floors;
Through the yelling Channel tempest when...Read more of this...

Psalm 80

by John Milton
 Thou Shepherd that dost Israel keep
Give ear in time of need,
Who leadest like a flock of sheep
Thy loved Josephs seed,
That sitt'st between the Cherubs bright
Between their wings out-spread
Shine forth, and from thy cloud give light,
And on our foes thy dread.
In Ephraims view and Benjamins,
And in Manasse's sight 
Awake* thy strength, come, and be seen *Gnorera.
To save us by thy...Read more of this...

The Hosts

by Alan Seeger
 Purged, with the life they left, of all 
That makes life paltry and mean and small, 
In their new dedication charged 
With something heightened, enriched, enlarged, 
That lends a light to their lusty brows 
And a song to the rhythm of their tramping feet, 
These are the men that have taken vows, 
These are the hardy, the flower, the...Read more of this...

The Cathedral of Rheims

by Joyce Kilmer
 (From the French of Emile Verhaeren)

He who walks through the meadows of Champagne
At noon in Fall, when leaves like gold appear,
Sees it draw near
Like some great mountain set upon the plain,
From radiant dawn until the close of day,
Nearer it grows
To him who goes
Across the country. When tall towers lay
Their shadowy pall
Upon his way,
He enters, where
The solid stone is hollowed...Read more of this...

An Ante-bellum Sermon

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
We is gathahed hyeah, my brothahs,
In dis howlin' wildaness,
Fu' to speak some words of comfo't
To each othah in distress.
An' we chooses fu' ouah subjic'
Dis—we'll 'splain it by an' by;
"An' de Lawd said, 'Moses, Moses,'
An' de man said, 'Hyeah am I.'"
Now ole Pher'oh, down in Egypt,
Was de wuss man evah bo'n,
An' he had de Hebrew chillun
Down dah wukin' in his co'n;
'T...Read more of this...

General William Booth Enters into Heaven

by Vachel Lindsay
 [To be sung to the tune of The Blood of the Lamb with indicated instrument] 


I 

[Bass drum beaten loudly.]

Booth led boldly with his big bass drum --
(Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?)
The Saints smiled gravely and they said: "He's come."
(Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?)
Walking lepers followed, rank on rank,
Lurching bravoes from...Read more of this...

Psalm 46 part 2

by Isaac Watts
 God fights for his church.

Let Zion in her King rejoice;
Though tyrants rage, and kingdoms rise,
He utters his almighty voice,
The nations melt, the tumult dies.

The Lord of old for Jacob fought,
And Jacob's God is still our aid:
Behold the works his hand has wrought,
What desolations he has made!

From sea to sea, through all the shores,
He makes the noise of battle cease;
When...Read more of this...

Psalm 113

by Isaac Watts
 Proper tune.
The majesty and condescension of God.

Ye that delight to serve the Lord,
The honors of his name record,
His sacred name for ever bless;
Where'er the circling sun displays
His rising beams, or setting rays,
Let lands and seas his power confess.

Not time, nor nature's narrow rounds,
Can give his vast dominion bounds,
The heav'ns are far below his height:
Let no created greatness dare
With our...Read more of this...

Often I Am Permitted to Return to a Meadow

by Robert Duncan
 as if it were a scene made-up by the mind, 
that is not mine, but is a made place,

that is mine, it is so near to the heart, 
an eternal pasture folded in all thought 
so that there is a hall therein

that is a made place, created by light 
wherefrom the shadows that are forms fall.

Wherefrom fall all architectures...Read more of this...

War-Music

by Henry Van Dyke
 Break off! Dance no more!
Danger is at the door.
Music is in arms.
To signal war's alarms. 

Hark, a sudden trumpet calling
Over the hill!
Why are you calling, trumpet, calling?
What is your will? 

Men, men, men !
Men who are ready to fight
For their country's life, and the right 
Of a liberty-loving land to be
Free, free, free!
Free from a tyrant's chain, 
Free from...Read more of this...

Sonnet 10

by Alan Seeger
 I have sought Happiness, but it has been 
A lovely rainbow, baffling all pursuit, 
And tasted Pleasure, but it was a fruit 
More fair of outward hue than sweet within. 
Renouncing both, a flake in the ferment 
Of battling hosts that conquer or recoil, 
There only, chastened by fatigue and toil, 
I knew what came the nearest to content....Read more of this...

The Invincible Armada

by Friedrich von Schiller
 She comes, she comes--the burden of the deeps!
Beneath her wails the universal sea!
With clanking chains and a new god, she sweeps,
And with a thousand thunders, unto thee!
The ocean-castles and the floating hosts--
Ne'er on their like looked the wild water!--Well
May man the monster name "Invincible."
O'er shuddering waves she gathers to thy coasts!
The horror that she spreads can claim
Just title to...Read more of this...

Dinner at the Who's Who

by Laure-Anne Bosselaar
  amidst swirling wine 
and flickers of silver guests quote 
Dante, Brecht, Kant and each other. 

 I wait in the hall after not 
powdering my nose, trying to re-
compose that woman who’ll 

 graciously take her place 
at the table and won’t tell her hosts:
I looked into your bedroom 

 and closets, smelled your 
“Obsession” and “Brut,” sat...Read more of this...

Sleep is supposed to be

by Emily Dickinson
 Sleep is supposed to be
By souls of sanity
The shutting of the eye.

Sleep is the station grand
Down which, on either hand
The hosts of witness stand!

Morn is supposed to be
By people of degree
The breaking of the Day.

Morning has not occurred!

That shall Aurora be --
East of Eternity --
One with the banner gay --
One in the red array --
That is the break of...Read more of this...

Excerpt from The Aeneid

by Virgil
Soon had their hosts in bloody battle join'd;
But westward to the sea the sun declin'd.
Intrench'd before the town both armies lie,
While Night with sable wings involves the sky....Read more of this...

The Hour of the King

by George William Russell
 WHO would think this quiet breather
From the world had taken flight?
Yet within the form we see there
Wakes the Golden King to-night.


Out upon the face of faces
He looked forth before his sleep:
Now he knows the starry races
Haunters of the ancient deep.


On the Bird of Diamond Glory
Floats in mystic floods of song:
As he lists Time’s triple story
Seems but as a day...Read more of this...

The Pasha And The Dervish

by Victor Hugo
 ("Un jour Ali passait.") 
 
 {XIII, Nov. 8, 1828.} 


 Ali came riding by—the highest head 
 Bent to the dust, o'ercharged with dread, 
 Whilst "God be praised!" all cried; 
 But through the throng one dervish pressed, 
 Aged and bent, who dared arrest 
 The pasha in his pride. 
 
 "Ali Tepelini, light of...Read more of this...

Sonnet VI

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET VI. Datemi pace, o duri miei pensieri. HE COMPARES HIMSELF TO A BESIEGED CITY, AND ACCUSES HIS OWN HEART OF TREASON.  O tyrant thoughts, vouchsafe me some repose!Sufficeth not that Love, and Death, and Fate,Make war all round me to my very gate,But I must in me armèd hosts enclose?Read more of this...

Hymn 44 part 1

by Isaac Watts
 Christ's dying, rising, and reigning.

Luke 23:27,29,44-46; Mt. 27:50,57; 28:6ff. 

He dies! the friend of sinners dies!
Lo! Salem's daughters weep around;
A solemn darkness veils the skies;
A sudden trembling shakes the ground.

Come, saints, and drop a tear or two
For him who groaned beneath your load:
He shed a thousand drops for you,
A thousand drops of richer blood.

Here's love and grief beyond degree,
The...Read more of this...

Gods Skallywags

by Robert William Service
 The God of Scribes looked down and saw
The bitter band of seven,
Who had outraged his holy law
And lost their hope of Heaven:
Came Villon, petty thief and pimp,
And obscene Baudelaire,
And Byron with his letcher limp,
And Poe with starry stare.

And Wilde who lived his hell on earth,
And Burns, the baudy bard,
And Francis Thompson, from his birth
Malevolently starred. . . .
As like...Read more of this...

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