Famous Parapets Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Aftermath

...remember the dark months you held the sector at Mametz--
The nights you watched and wired and dug and piled sandbags on parapets?
Do you remember the rats; and the stench
Of corpses rotting in front of the front-line trench--
And dawn coming, dirty-white, and chill with a hopeless rain?
Do you ever stop and ask, 'Is it all going to happen again?'

Do you remember that hour of din before the attack--
And the anger, the blind compassion that seized and shook you then
As you pee...Read more of this...
by Sassoon, Siegfried


Boadicea

...,
Loosely robed in flying raiment, sang the terrible prophetesses.
"Fear not, isle of blowing woodland, isle of silvery parapets!
Tho' the Roman eagle shadow thee, tho' the gathering enemy narrow thee,
Thou shalt wax and he shall dwindle, thou shalt be the mighty one yet!
Thine the liberty, thine the glory, thine the deeds to be celebrated,
Thine the myriad-rolling ocean, light and shadow illimitable,
Thine the lands of lasting summer, many-blossoming Paradises,
Thine the Nor...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord

Forest Of Europe

...grape,
not these tree-shaded prairie halts but space
so desolate it mocked destinations.

Who is that dark child on the parapets
of Europe, watching the evening river mint
its sovereigns stamped with power, not with poets,
the Thames and the Neva rustling like banknotes,
then, black on gold, the Hudson's silhouettes?

>From frozen Neva to the Hudson pours,
under the airport domes, the echoing stations,
the tributary of emigrants whom exile
has made as classless as the common ...Read more of this...
by Walcott, Derek

Pelleas And Ettarre

...remain 
Lord of the tourney. And Arthur had the jousts 
Down in the flat field by the shore of Usk 
Holden: the gilded parapets were crowned 
With faces, and the great tower filled with eyes 
Up to the summit, and the trumpets blew. 
There all day long Sir Pelleas kept the field 
With honour: so by that strong hand of his 
The sword and golden circlet were achieved. 

Then rang the shout his lady loved: the heat 
Of pride and glory fired her face; her eye 
Sparkled; she caug...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord

The Bridge of Lodi

...
VI 

Even as when the trackway thundered 
With the charge of grenadiers, 
And the blood of forty hundred 
Splashed its parapets and piers . . . 

VII 

Any ancient crone I'd toady 
Like a lass in young-eyed prime, 
Could she tell some tale of Lodi 
At that moving mighty time. 

VIII 

So, I ask the wives of Lodi 
For traditions of that day; 
But alas! not anybody 
Seems to know of such a fray. 

IX 

And they heed but transitory 
Marketings in cheese and meat, 
Till I judge ...Read more of this...
by Hardy, Thomas


The Garden Wall

...arm pulled down 
when the street was built - 
narrow bricks of another century. 

Modestly, though laid with panels and parapets, 
a wall behind the flowers - 
roses and hollyhocks, the silver 
pods of lupine, sweet-tasting 
phlox, gray 
lavender - 
unnoticed - 
but I discovered 
the colors in the wall that woke 
when spray from the hose 
played on its pocks and warts - 

a hazy red, a 
grain gold, a mauve 
of small shadows, sprung 
from the quiet dry brown - 
archetype 
of t...Read more of this...
by Levertov, Denise

The Guardian Angel Of The Private Life

...o
thrash forth mysteries of morning joy? What quail-like giant tail of 
promises, pleiades, psalters, plane-trees,
what parapets petalling-forth the invisible
into the world of things,
turning the list into its spatial-form at last,
into its archival many-headed, many-legged colony . . .
Oh look at you.
What is it you hold back? What piece of time is it the list
won't cover? You down there, in the theater of
operations -- you, throat of the world -- so diacritical -- 
(are we...Read more of this...
by Graham, Jorie

The Parable Of The Old Men And The Young

...ire and iron,
But where the lamb for this burnt-offering?
Then Abram bound the youth with belts and straps,
And builded parapets and trenches there,
And stretchèd forth the knife to slay his son.
When lo! an Angel called him out of heaven,
Saying, Lay not thy hand upon the lad,
Neither do anything to him, thy son.
Behold! Caught in a thicket by its horns,
A Ram. Offer the Ram of Pride instead.

But the old man would not so, but slew his son,
And half the seed of Europe, one b...Read more of this...
by Owen, Wilfred

To Brooklyn Bridge

...thy stride,--
Implicitly thy freedom staying thee!

Out of some subway scuttle, cell or loft
A bedlamite speeds to thy parapets,
Tilting there momently, shrill shirt ballooning,
A jest falls from the speechless caravan.

Down Wall, from girder into street noon leaks,
A rip-tooth of the sky's acetylene;
All afternoon the cloud-flown derricks turn . . .
Thy cables breathe the North Atlantic still.

And obscure as that heaven of the Jews,
Thy guerdon . . . Accolade thou dost be...Read more of this...
by Crane, Hart

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