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Famous Joshua Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Tebb, Barry
...rows

Like trees or grass

I watch you pass.



23



The Aire is slow and almost

Still



In the Bridgefield

The Joshua Tetley clock

Over the Atkinson Grimshaw

Print

Is stopped at nineteen fifty

Four

The year I left.





24



Grimshaw’s home was

Half a mile away

In Knostrop Hall

Margaret and I

Climbed the ruined

Walls her hair was

Blowing in the wind

Her eyes were stars

In the green night

Her hands were holding 

My hands.





25



Half a cent...Read more of this...



by Lindsay, Vachel
...the world
Were brought to block for tyrannies abhorred.
Would that the sword of Cromwell and the Lord,
The sword of Joshua and Gideon,
Hewed hip and thigh the hosts of Midian.
God send that ironside ere tomorrow's sun;
Let Gabriel and Michael with him ride.
God send the Regicide.


II. A COLLOQUIAL REPLY: TO ANY NEWSBOY

If you lay for Iago at the stage door with a brick
You have missed the moral of the play.
He will have a midnight supper with Othello...Read more of this...

by Bible, The
...We should always serve the Lord
And Him alone we should fear
For the throne of our hearts,
He does not want to share
We should never allow another
The place reserved for Him,
But to give Him that place of Lordship
That will keep our hearts from sin
For we must choose whom to serve
And whom our allegiance is for
But as for me and my household,
We ...Read more of this...

by Smart, Christopher
...s, the Man of God, bless with a Lizard, in the sweet majesty of good-nature, and the magnanimity of meekness. 

Let Joshua praise God with an Unicorn -- the swiftness of the Lord, and the strength of the Lord, and the spear of the Lord mighty in battle. 

Let Caleb with an Ounce praise the Lord of the Land of beauty and rejoice in the blessing of his good Report. 

Let Othniel praise God with the Rhinoceros, who put on his armour for the reward of beauty in the Lo...Read more of this...

by Smart, Christopher
...to feeble man. 

For I am ready to die for his sake -- who lay down his life for all mankind. 

For the son of JOSHUA shall prevail against the servant of Gideon -- Good men have their betters, 

For my seed shall worship the Lord JESUS as numerous and musical as the grashoppers of Paradise. 

For I pray God to turn the council of Ahitophel into foolishness. 

For the learning of the Lord increases daily, as the sun is an improving angel. 

For I pray God...Read more of this...



by Levine, Philip
...ass is unfamiliar,
 the trunk dark,
as black as an olive's; the low
 branches stab
out, gnarled and dull: a carob
 or a Joshua tree.
A sudden flaring-up ahead,
 a black-winged
bird rises from nowhere,
 white patches
underneath its wings, and is gone.
 You hear your own
breath catching in your ears,
 a roaring, a sea
sound that goes on and on
 until you lean
forward to place both hands
 -- fingers spread --
into the bleached grasses
 and let your knees
slowly down....Read more of this...

by Collins, Billy
...age-
anonymous men catching a ride into the future
on a vessel more lasting than themselves.

And you have not read Joshua Reynolds,
they say, until you have read him
enwreathed with Blake's furious scribbling.

Yet the one I think of most often,
the one that dangles from me like a locket,
was written in the copy of Catcher in the Rye
I borrowed from the local library
one slow, hot summer.
I was just beginning high school then,
reading books on a davenport in my p...Read more of this...

by Trumbull, John
...,
To help weak heroes run away;
Tells how the hours, at this sad trial,
Went back, as erst on Ahaz' dial,
While British Joshua stay'd the moon
On Monmouth plains for Ajalon.
Heed not their sneers or gibes so arch,
Because she set before your march.
A small mistake! your meaning right;
You take her influence for her light:
Her influence, which shall be your guide,
And o'er your Gen'ralship preside.
Hence still shall teem your empty skull
With vict'ries, when the mo...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...efore shall not Moses, though of God 
Highly beloved, being but the minister 
Of law, his people into Canaan lead; 
But Joshua, whom the Gentiles Jesus call, 
His name and office bearing, who shall quell 
The adversary-Serpent, and bring back 
Through the world's wilderness long-wandered Man 
Safe to eternal Paradise of rest. 
Mean while they, in their earthly Canaan placed, 
Long time shall dwell and prosper, but when sins 
National interrupt their publick peace, 
Provok...Read more of this...

by Cowper, William
...Why should the unburnt, though burning bush,
Be angry as the crackling thorn?

Man should not faint at Thy rebuke,
Like Joshua falling on his face,
When the cursed thing that Achan took
Brought Israel into just disgrace.

Perhaps some golden wedge suppress'd,
Some secret sin offends my God;
Perhaps that Babylonish vest,
Self-righteousness, provokes the rod.

Ah! were I buffeted all day,
Mock'd, crown'd with thorns and spit upon,
I yet should have no right to say,
My g...Read more of this...

by Levine, Philip
...The magpie in the Joshua tree 
Has come to rest. Darkness collects, 
And what I cannot hear or see, 
Broken limbs, the curious bird, 
Become in darkness darkness too. 
I had been going when I heard 
The sound of something called the night; 
I had been going but I stopped 
To see the bird restrain his flight. 
The bird in place, the shadows dropped 
As if they wait...Read more of this...

by Kipling, Rudyard
...
Some clever civilian was managing that,
 An' none of, etc.

When the Jews had a fight at the foot of a hill,
Young Joshua ordered the sun to stand still,
 For he was a Captain of Engineers, etc.

When the Children of Israel made bricks without straw,
They were learnin' the regular work of our Corps,
 The work of, etc.

For ever since then, if a war they would wage,
Behold us a-shinin' on history's page --
 First page for, etc.

We lay down their sidings an' h...Read more of this...

by Marvell, Andrew
...hy great soul yet once a world does see, 
Spacious enough, and pure enough for thee. 
How soon thou Moses hast, and Joshua found, 
And David for the sword and harp renowned? 
How straight canst to each happy mansion go? 
(Far better known above than here below) 
And in those joys dost spend the endless day, 
Which in expressing we ourselves betray. 

For we, since thou art gone, with heavy doom, 
Wander like ghosts about thy lov?d tomb; 
And lost in tears, have neithe...Read more of this...

by Paterson, Andrew Barton
...urmured, "A rorty old hoss you are: 
I give you command of the whole of the band" -- 
And handed the Government over to Joshua. 

But Moses told 'em before he died, 
"Wherever you are, whatever betide, 
Every year as the time draws near 
By lot or by rote choose you a goat, 
And let the high priest confess on the beast 
The sins of the people the worst and the least, 
Lay your sins on the goat! Sure the plan ought to suit yer. 
Because all your sins are 'his troubles'...Read more of this...

by Hugo, Victor
...de la pensée!") 
 
 {Bk. VII. i., March 19, 1853.} 


 Sound, sound for ever, Clarions of Thought! 
 
 When Joshua 'gainst the high-walled city fought, 
 He marched around it with his banner high, 
 His troops in serried order following nigh, 
 But not a sword was drawn, no shaft outsprang, 
 Only the trumpets the shrill onset rang. 
 At the first blast, smiled scornfully the king, 
 And at the second sneered, half wondering: 
 "Hop'st thou with noise my st...Read more of this...

by Warton, Thomas
...Ah, stay thy treacherous hand, forbear to trace
Those faultless forms of elegance and grace!
Ah, cease to spread the bright transparent mass,
With Titian's pencil, o'er the speaking glass!
Nor steal, by strokes of art with truth combin'd,
The fond illusions of my wayward mind!
For long, enamour'd of a barbarous age,
A faithless truant to the classic page;
...Read more of this...

by Rich, Adrienne
...bitterest night my sack of hidden
poetries, old glue shredding from their spines

my time exposure of the Leonids
 over Joshua Tree

As if we're going to win this O because

•

If you have a sister I am not she
nor your mother nor you my daughter
nor are we lovers or any kind of couple
 except in the intensive care
 of poetry and
death's master plan architecture-in-progress
draft elevations of a black-and-white mosaic dome
the master left on your doorstep
with a white card in...Read more of this...

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