Famous Martyr Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Martyr poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous martyr poems. These examples illustrate what a famous martyr poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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...in the glorious cause,
Your King, your Country, and her laws,
From great DUNDEE, who smiling Victory led,
And fell a Martyr in her arms,
(What breast of northern ice but warms!)
To bold BALMERINO’S undying name,
Whose soul of fire, lighted at Heaven’s high flame,
Deserves the proudest wreath departed heroes claim:
Nor unrevenged your fate shall lie,
It only lags, the fatal hour,
Your blood shall, with incessant cry,
Awake at last, th’ unsparing Power;
As from the c...Read more of this...
by
Burns, Robert
...ders to the needs of all;
Incurs vast perils, or, to save those dear,
Embraces death without one sigh or tear.
Life's martyrs still the endless drama play
Though no great Homer lives to chant their worth to-day.
III.
And if he chanted, who would list his songs,
So hurried now the world's gold-seeking throngs?
And yet shall silence mantle mighty deeds?
Awake, dear Muse, and sing though no ear heeds!
Extol the triumphs, and bemoan the end
Of that true hero, lover, son a...Read more of this...
by
Wilcox, Ella Wheeler
...shining smoke uprose, and flashes of flame were
Thrust through their folds and withdrawn, like the quivering hands of a martyr.
Then as the wind seized the gleeds and the burning thatch, and, uplifting,
Whirled them aloft through the air, at once from a hundred house-tops
Started the sheeted smoke with flashes of flame intermingled.
These things beheld in dismay the crowd on the shore and on shipboard.
Speechless at first they stood, then cried aloud in their anguish,
"We sh...Read more of this...
by
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...Vienna or Munich,
Fastened him into a front-row box,
And danced off the ballet with trousers and tunic.
IX.
Come, old martyr! What, torment enough is it?
Back to my room shall you take your sweet self.
Good-bye, mother-beetle; husband-eft, _sufficit!_
See the snug niche I have made on my shelf!
A.'s book shall prop you up, B.'s shall cover you,
Here's C. to be grave with, or D. to be gay,
And with E. on each side, and F. right over you,
Dry-rot at ease till the Judgment-day...Read more of this...
by
Browning, Robert
...enged ere yet his eagle spirit parts.
Calm, opposite the Christian father rose,
Pale on his venerable brow its rays
Of martyr light the conflagration throws;
One hand upon his lovely child he lays,
And one th' uncover'd crowd to silence sways;
While, though the battle flash is faster driven,--
Unaw'd, with eye unstartled by the blaze,
He for his bleeding country prays to Heaven,--
Prays that the men of blood themselves may be forgiven.
Short time is now for gratulating spee...Read more of this...
by
Campbell, Thomas
...The moon is full this winter night;
The stars are clear, though few;
And every window glistens bright,
With leaves of frozen dew.
The sweet moon through your lattice gleams
And lights your room like day;
And there you pass, in happy dreams,
The peaceful hours away!
While I, with effort hardly quelling
The anguish in my breast,
Wander about the silent d...Read more of this...
by
Brontë, Emily
...So well in paint and stone they judg'd of merit:
But kings in wit may want discerning spirit.
The hero William, and the martyr Charles,
One knighted Blackmore, and one pension'd Quarles;
Which made old Ben, and surly Dennis swear,
"No Lord's anointed, but a Russian bear."
Not with such majesty, such bold relief,
The forms august, of king, or conqu'ring chief,
E'er swell'd on marble; as in verse have shin'd
(In polish'd verse) the manners and the mind.
Oh! could I mount on t...Read more of this...
by
Pope, Alexander
...e of Piety.
Let Glover, house of Glover rejoice with Capnites a kind of Jasper -- blessed be the memory of Glover the martyr.
Let Egerton, house of Egerton rejoice with Sphragis green but not pellucid.
Let Reading, house of Reading rejoice with Synodontites found in the fish Synodontes. 27th July N.S. 1762 Lord Jesus have mercy on my soul.
Let Bolton, house of Bolton rejoice with Polygrammos, a kind of Jasper with white streaks.
Let Paulet, house of Paulet rejoice w...Read more of this...
by
Smart, Christopher
...nd crept through,
And crawling slow in deadly fear,
By movements wise made good his rear.
Then scorning all the fame of martyr,
For Boston took his swift departure,
Nor look'd back on the fatal spot,
More than the family of Lot.
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 f...Read more of this...
by
Trumbull, John
...ou congratulate them when their blue-blooded Doberman pinscher wins the obedience championship, they look at you like a martyr, And say that the garbage man's little Rover is really infinitely smarter; And if they smoke fifteen-cent cigars they are sure somebody else gets better cigars for a dime. And if they take a trip to Paris they are sure their friends who went to Old Orchard had a better time. Yes, they look on their neighbor's ox and ass with covetousness and their own...Read more of this...
by
Nash, Ogden
...mong,
Tho' now releas'd in woodlands wild to rove?
Say---hast thou felt from friends some cruel wrong,
Or diedst thou---martyr of disastrous love?
Ah! songstress sad! that such my lot might be,
To sigh and sing at liberty---like thee!...Read more of this...
by
Turner Smith, Charlotte
...ngue that time now, trumpet now that field,
And, on the fighter, forge his glorious day.
On Christ they do and on the martyr may;
But be the war within, the brand we wield
Unseen, the heroic breast not outward-steeled,
Earth hears no hurtle then from fiercest fray.
Yet God (that hews mountain and continent,
Earth, all, out; who, with trickling increment,
Veins violets and tall trees makes more and more)
Could crowd career with conquest while there went
Those years an...Read more of this...
by
Hopkins, Gerard Manley
...of a mandoline
And a clatter and a chatter from within
Where fishmen lounge at noon: where the walls
Of Magnus Martyr hold
Inexplicable splendour of Ionian white and gold.
The river sweats
Oil and tar
The barges drift
With the turning tide
Red sails 270
Wide
To leeward, swing on the heavy spar.
The barges wash
Drifting logs
Dow...Read more of this...
by
Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...hen are manacled when they're condemn'd to die.
Whate'er she meant by 't bury it with me
For since I am
Love's martyr it might breed idolatry
If into other hands these reliques came. 20
As 'twas humility
T' afford to it all that a soul can do
So 'tis some bravery
That since you would have none of me I bury some of you....Read more of this...
by
Donne, John
...distant saints known*
And specially, from every shire's end
Of Engleland, to Canterbury they wend,
The holy blissful Martyr for to seek,
That them hath holpen*, when that they were sick. *helped
Befell that, in that season on a day,
In Southwark at the Tabard as I lay,
Ready to wenden on my pilgrimage
To Canterbury with devout corage,
At night was come into that hostelry
Well nine and twenty in a company
Of sundry folk, *by aventure y-fall *who had by chance fallen
In...Read more of this...
by
Chaucer, Geoffrey
...n
Sich an awful man as him.
Then the other lawyer started,
An' with brimmin', tearful eyes,
Said his client was a martyr
That was brought to sacrifice.
An' he give to that same pris'ner
Every blessed human grace,
Tell I saw the light o' virtue
Fairly shinin' from his face.
Then I own 'at I was puzzled
How sich things could rightly be;
An' this aggervatin' question
Seems to keep a-puzzlin' me.
So, will some one please inform me,
An' this mystery unroll--...Read more of this...
by
Laurence Dunbar, Paul
...hail
The sacred Shades, that, slowly-rising, pass
Before my wondering Eyes -- First, Socrates,
Truth's early Champion, Martyr for his God:
Solon, the next, who built his Commonweal,
On Equity's firm Base: Lycurgus, then,
Severely good, and him of rugged Rome,
Numa, who soften'd her rapacious Sons.
Cimon sweet-soul'd, and Aristides just.
Unconquer'd Cato, virtuous in Extreme;
With that attemper'd Heroe, mild, and firm,
Who wept the Brother, while the Tyrant bled.
Scipio, the ...Read more of this...
by
Thomson, James
...nce;
That head of his, which could not keep a crown
On earth, yet ventured in my face to advance
A claim to those of martyrs — like my own:
If I had had my sword, as I had once
When I cut ears off, I had cut him down;
But having but my keys, and not my brand,
I only knock'd his head from out his hand.
XX
'And then he set up such a headless howl,
That all the saints came out and took him in;
And there he sits by St. Paul, cheek by jowl;
That fellow Paul— the parv...Read more of this...
by
Byron, George (Lord)
...whining of a mandoline
And a clatter and a chatter from within
Where fishmen lounge at noon: where the walls
Of Magnus Martyr hold
Inexplicable splendour of Ionian white and gold.
The river sweats
Oil and tar
The barges drift
With the turning tide
Red sails
Wide
To leeward, swing on the heavy spar.
The barges wash
Drifting logs
Down Greenwich reach
Past the Isle of Dogs.
Weialala leia
Wallala leialala
Elizabeth and Leicester
Beating oars
The stern was forme...Read more of this...
by
Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...ed..." They do not finish their sentence:
"Don’t abandon us, don’t leave us."
***
Our losses: between two and eight martyrs each day.
And ten wounded.
And twenty homes.
And fifty olive trees...
Added to this the structural flaw that
Will arrive at the poem, the play, and the unfinished canvas.
***
A woman told the cloud: cover my beloved
For my clothing is drenched with his blood.
***
If you are not rain, my love
Be tree
Sated with fertility, be tree
If you...Read more of this...
by
Darwish, Mahmoud
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