Famous Independence Poems by Famous Poets

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

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133. The Brigs of Ayr

...shrill,
Or deep-ton’d plovers grey, wild-whistling o’er the hill;
Shall he—nurst in the peasant’s lowly shed,
To hardy independence bravely bred,
By early poverty to hardship steel’d.
And train’d to arms in stern Misfortune’s field—
Shall he be guilty of their hireling crimes,
The servile, mercenary Swiss of rhymes?
Or labour hard the panegyric close,
With all the venal soul of dedicating prose?
No! though his artless strains he rudely sings,
And throws his hand uncouthly o’...Read more of this...
by Burns, Robert


91. The Vision

...
Note 4. William Wallace.—R. B. [back]
Note 5. Adam Wallace of Richardton, cousin to the immortal preserver of Scottish independence.—R. B. [back]
Note 6. Wallace, laird of Craigie, who was second in command under Douglas, Earl of Ormond, at the famous battle on the banks of Sark, fought anno 1448. That glorious victory was principally owing to the judicious conduct and intrepid valour of the gallant laird of Craigie, who died of his wounds after the action.—R. B. [back]
Note...Read more of this...
by Burns, Robert

Americanisation

....
Lo, many men in many lands
Know when their cause is just.
There will be quite a large attendance
When we Declare our Independence....Read more of this...
by Chesterton, G K

As I Sat Alone by Blue Ontario's Shores

...the land? its substratums and objects? 
Have you consider’d the organic compact of the first day of the first year of
 Independence, sign’d by the Commissioners, ratified by The States, and read by
 Washington
 at the head of the army? 
Have you possess’d yourself of the Federal Constitution? 
Do you see who have left all feudal processes and poems behind them, and assumed the poems
 and
 processes of Democracy? 
Are you faithful to things? do you teach as the land and sea, ...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

Childhood

...an empty room upstairs 
There was a large tin box 
Containing reproductions of the Magna Charta, 
Of the Declaration of Independence 
And of a letter from Raleigh after the Armada. 
There were also several packets of stamps, 
Yellow and blue Guatemala parrots, 
Blue stags and red baboons and birds from Sarawak, 
Indians and Men-of-war 
From the United States, 
And the green and red portraits 
Of King Francobello 
Of Italy. 

V 

I don't believe in God. 
I do believe in avengi...Read more of this...
by Aldington, Richard


Crossing Nation

...Tamalpais black-breasted above Pacific azure
 Berkeley hills pine-covered below--
Dr Leary in his brown house scribing Independence
 Declaration
 typewriter at window
 silver panorama in natural eyeball--

Sacramento valley rivercourse's Chinese 
 dragonflames licking green flats north-hazed
 State Capitol metallic rubble, dry checkered fields
 to Sierras- past Reno, Pyramid Lake's 
 blue Altar, pure water in Nevada sands' 
 brown wasteland scratched by tires

 Jerry Rubin a...Read more of this...
by Ginsberg, Allen

Custer

...When, through her new-born passion for control, 
She drives that beauteous impulse from his soul.
What were her vaunted independence worth
If to obtain she sells her sweetest rights of birth? 

IV.

God formed fair woman for her true estate-
Man's tender comrade, and his equal mate, 
Not his competitor in toil and trade.
While coarser man, with greater strength was made
To fight her battles and her rights protect.
Ay! to protect the rights of earth's elect
(The virgin maiden ...Read more of this...
by Wilcox, Ella Wheeler

Elegy For My Father

...the pages.
Spin with the windows and doors that he mended.
Spin with his answers, patient, impatient.
Spin with his dry independence, his arms
warmed by the needs of his family, his hands
flying under the wide, carved gold ring, and the pages
flying so his thought could fly. His breath slows,
lending its edges out to the night.

Here is his open mouth. Silence is here
like one more new question that he will not answer. 
A leaf is his temple. The dark is the prayer.
He has giv...Read more of this...
by Finch, Annie

Gertrude of Wyoming

...ld.

The rose of England bloom'd on Gertrude's cheek--
What though these shades had seen her birth, her sire
A Briton's independence taught to seek
Far western worlds; and there his household fire
The light of social love did long inspire,
And many a halcyon day he lived to see
Unbroken but by one misfortune dire,
When fate had reft his mutual heart--but she
Was gone--and Gertrude climb'd a widow'd father's knee.

A loved bequest,--and I may half impart--
To them that feel th...Read more of this...
by Campbell, Thomas

Independence

...Come to my arms --- is it eve? is it morn? 
Is Apollo awake? Is Diana reborn? 
Are the streams in full song? Do the woods whisper hush 
Is it the nightingale? Is it the thrush? 
Is it the smile of the autumn, the blush 
Of the spring? Is the world full of peace or alarms? 
Come to my arms, Laylah, come to my arms! 

Come to my arms, though the hurricane bl...Read more of this...
by Crowley, Aleister

Independence Ode

...Columbia, fair queen in your glory! 
Columbia, the pride of the earth! 
We crown you with song- wreath and story; 
We honour the day of your birth! 

The wrath of a king and his minions
You braved, to be free, on that day; 
And the eagle sailed up on strong pinions, 
And frightened the lion at bay.

Since the chains and the shackles are broken, 
And citize...Read more of this...
by Wilcox, Ella Wheeler

Liberty

...,--
There came a sound of music, thrown afloat
Upon the balmy air--a clanging note
Reiterated from the brazen throat
Of Independence Bell: A sound so sweet,
The clamoring throngs of people in the streets
Were stilled as at the solemn voice of prayer,
And heads were bowed, and lips were moving there
That made no sound--until the spell had passed,
And then, as when all sudden comes the blast
Of some tornado, came the cheer on cheer
Of every eager voice, while far and near
The e...Read more of this...
by Riley, James Whitcomb

Marriage

...ed hand
that has an affection for one
and proves it to the bone,
impatient to assure you
that impatience is the mark of independence
not of bondage.
"Married people often look that way" --
"seldom and cold, up and down,
mixed and malarial
with a good day and bad."
"When do we feed?"
We occidentals are so unemotional,
we quarrel as we feed;
one's self is quite lost,
the irony preserved
in "the Ahasuerus t?te ? t?te banquet"
with its "good monster, lead the way,"
with little la...Read more of this...
by Moore, Marianne

MFingal - Canto IV

....
Not North in more distress'd condition,
Out-voted first by opposition;
Nor good King George, when our dire phantom
Of Independence came to haunt him,
Which hov'ring round by night and day,
Not all his conj'rors e'er could lay.
His friends, assembled for his sake,
He wisely left in pawn, at stake,
To tarring, feath'ring, kicks and drubs
Of furious, disappointed mobs,
Or with their forfeit heads to pay
For him, their leader, crept away.
So when wise Noah summon'd greeting,
Al...Read more of this...
by Trumbull, John

Prairie

...s.
They are mine, the crowds of people at a Fourth of July basket picnic, listening to a lawyer read the Declaration of Independence, watching the pinwheels and Roman candles at night, the young men and women two by two hunting the bypaths and kissing bridges.
They are mine, the horses looking over a fence in the frost of late October saying good-morning to the horses hauling wagons of rutabaga to market.
They are mine, the old zigzag rail fences, the new barb wire.. . .
The ...Read more of this...
by Sandburg, Carl

Resolution And Independence

...I 

There was a roaring in the wind all night; 
The rain came heavily and fell in floods; 
But now the sun is rising calm and bright; 
The birds are singing in the distant woods; 
Over his own sweet voice the Stock-dove broods; 
The Jay makes answer as the Magpie chatters; 
And all the air is filled with pleasant noise of waters. 

II 

All things that lov...Read more of this...
by Wordsworth, William

Resolution And Independence

...I 

There was a roaring in the wind all night; 
The rain came heavily and fell in floods; 
But now the sun is rising calm and bright; 
The birds are singing in the distant woods; 
Over his own sweet voice the Stock-dove broods; 
The Jay makes answer as the Magpie chatters; 
And all the air is filled with pleasant noise of waters. 

II 

All things that lov...Read more of this...
by Wordsworth, William

Song of the Broad-Axe

...adventurous and daring persons, 
The beauty of wood-boys and wood-men, with their clear untrimm’d faces, 
The beauty of independence, departure, actions that rely on themselves, 
The American contempt for statutes and ceremonies, the boundless impatience of restraint,

The loose drift of character, the inkling through random types, the solidification;
The butcher in the slaughter-house, the hands aboard schooners and sloops, the raftsman,
 the
 pioneer, 
Lumbermen in their wi...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

The Bride of Abydos

...ined to the Archipelago, the sea alluded to. 

(35) Lambro Canzani, a Greek, famous for his efforts in 1789-90, for the independence of his country. Abandoned by the Russians, he became a pirate, and the Archipelago was the scene of his enterprises. He is said to be still alive at St Petersburg. He and Riga are the two most celebrated of the Greek revolutionists. 

(36) "Rayahs," all who pay the capitation tax, called the "Haratch." 

(37) This first of voyages is one of the ...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)

The Cambaroora Star

...tle mercy for the loafer and the scamp -- 
If there wasn't law and order, there was justice in the camp; 
And the manly independence that is found where diggers are 
Had a sentinel to guard it in the CAMBAROORA STAR. 
There was strife about the Chinamen, who came in days of old 
Like a swarm of thieves and loafers when the diggers found the gold -- 
Like the sneaking fortune-hunters who are always found behind, 
And who only shepherd diggers till they track them to the `find'...Read more of this...
by Lawson, Henry

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