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Famous Ramparts Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Emerson, Ralph Waldo
...ns in the pools,
Are no brothers of my blood,—
They discredit Adamhood.

Eyes of gods! ye must have seen,
O'er your ramparts as ye lean,
The general debility,
Of genius the sterility,
Mighty projects countermanded,
Rash ambition broken-handed,
Puny man and scentless rose
Tormenting Pan to double the dose.
Rebuild or ruin: either fill
Of vital force the wasted rill,
Or, tumble all again in heap
To weltering chaos, and to sleep.

Say, Seigneurs, are the old Niles dr...Read more of this...



by Tebb, Barry
...e’s Crown

With sceptre and with gown,

The carved heads have grown

On grey Sheldonian stone.

The railings on the ramparts

On York Wall held my breath

As I walked my ten year old

Spirit in rain and sun, wind

Willing me on while no one knew

Where I had gone.





13



With every car alarm

I hear the air raid

Siren’s song, Waterloo Road’s

Bomb hole big enough to hold

A bus that could not stop;

Maurice the butcher gave a

Crayoning book I filled in

Until th...Read more of this...

by Tebb, Barry
...ks.



The avenues through the trees were Versailles and

Windsor Great Park, the earth mound by the main gate

The ramparts of Troy.



11



How she could encompass me in her own fragility!

At ten she looked after her two year old sister

And already delinquent younger brother, their

Mother working shifts, making sandwiches in Redmond’s

Pork Butchers’ basement.



Alone at dusk on East End Park a strange mister

Showed himself to her but she only laughed....Read more of this...

by Kipling, Rudyard
...t changes,
 The raw glare softens and clings,
Till the aching Oudtshoorn ranges
 Stand up like the thrones of Kings --

Ramparts of slaughter and peril --
 Blazing, amazing, aglow --
'Twixt the sky-line's belting beryl
 And the wine-dark flats below.

Royal the pageant closes,
 Lit by the last of the sun --
Opal and ash-of-roses,
 Cinnamon, umber, and dun.

The twilight svallows the thicket,
 The starlight reveals the ridge.
The whistle shrills to the picket --
 W...Read more of this...

by Doty, Mark
...t's a mistake.
Carlotta, her stocking cap glazed
like feathers in the rain,

under the radiant towers, the floodlit ramparts,
must have wondered at my impulse to touch her,
which was like touching myself,

the way your own hand feels when you hold it
because you want to feel contained.
She said, You get home safe now, you hear?

In the same way Ezekiel turned back
to the benevolent stranger.
I will write a poem for you tomorrow,

he said. The poem I will write...Read more of this...



by Key, Francis Scott
...ly we hail'd at the twilight's last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watch'd, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there --
O! say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave?
On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe's haughty host in dre...Read more of this...

by Robinson, Mary Darby
...zzl'ing Snow
O'er LEMAN'S Lake rose, tow'ring;
The BARON GOLFRE'S Castle strong
Was seen, the silv'ry peaks among,
With ramparts, darkly low'ring!--

Tall Battlements of flint, uprose,
Long shadowing down the valley,
A grove of sombre Pine, antique,
Amid the white expanse would break,
In many a gloomy alley.

A strong portcullis entrance show'd,
With ivy brown hung over;
And stagnate the green moat was found,
Whene'er the Trav'ller wander'd round,
Or moon-enamour'd Lover....Read more of this...

by Amjad, Majeed
...Where is she … ?!

That girl who stood on these ramparts years ago

Statuesque … iconic …besieged by the world

A deity …  worshiped by the early glow of my dreams !

Where is she now ?

That crazy-headed rebellious Truth

With the restless, quivering eye lashes

Who came to refute the sham of this world.

 

Under these ramparts,

My breath is still patched and mended

By the soft...Read more of this...

by Poe, Edgar Allan
...low;
(This --all this --was in the olden
Time long ago)
And every gentle air that dallied,
In that sweet day,
Along the ramparts plumed and pallid,
A winged odour went away.

III.
Wanderers in that happy valley
Through two luminous windows saw
Spirits moving musically
To a lute's well-tuned law,
Round about a throne, where sitting
(Porphyrogene!)
In state his glory well befitting,
The ruler of the realm was seen.

IV.
And all with pearl and ruby glowing
Was th...Read more of this...

by Untermeyer, Louis
...t iron songs to save the rest of me;
Plunging the brand in my own misery.
Crouching behind my pointed wall of words,
Ramparts I built of moons and loreleys,
Enchanted roses, sphinxes, love-sick birds,
Giants, dead lads who left their graves to dance,
Fairies and phœnixes and friendly gods—
A curious frieze, half Renaissance, half Greek,
Behind which, in revulsion of romance,
I lay and laughed—and wept—till I was weak.
Words were my shelter, words my one escape,
Wor...Read more of this...

by Seeger, Alan
...r in from its belfries the train of the honey-sweet hour. 


A city resplendent, 
Fulfilled of good things, 
On its ramparts are pendent 
The bucklers of kings. 
Broad banners unfurled 
Are afloat in its air. 
The lords of the world 
Look for harborage there. 
None finds save he comes as a bridegroom, having roses and vine in his hair. 


'Tis the city of Lovers, 
There many paths meet. 
Blessed he above others, 
With faltering feet, 
Who past its prou...Read more of this...

by Kipling, Rudyard
...d or the Dogger fills with cod.

"I barred my gates with iron, I shuttered my doors with flame,
Because to force my ramparts your nutshell navies came;
I took the sun from their presence, I cut them down with my blast,
And they died, but the Flag of England blew free ere the spirit passed.

"The lean white bear hath seen it in the long, long Arctic night,
The musk-ox knows the standard that flouts the Northern Light:
What is the Flag of England? Ye have but my bergs t...Read more of this...

by Poe, Edgar Allan
...flow,
(This- all this- was in the olden
Time long ago,)
And every gentle air that dallied,
In that sweet day,
Along the ramparts plumed and pallid,
A winged odor went away.

Wanderers in that happy valley,
Through two luminous windows, saw
Spirits moving musically,
To a lute's well-tuned law,
Round about a throne where, sitting
(Porphyrogene!)
In state his glory well-befitting,
The ruler of the realm was seen.

And all with pearl and ruby glowing
Was the fair palace d...Read more of this...

by Lanier, Sidney
...Chapter I.

Once on a time, a Dawn, all red and bright
Leapt on the conquered ramparts of the Night,
And flamed, one brilliant instant, on the world,
Then back into the historic moat was hurled
And Night was King again, for many years.
-- Once on a time the Rose of Spring blushed out
But Winter angrily withdrew it back
Into his rough new-bursten husk, and shut
The stern husk-leaves, and hid it many years.
-- Once Famine tricke...Read more of this...

by Service, Robert William
..., not shame;
Searching my uttermost valleys, fighting each step as they go,
Shooting the wrath of my rapids, scaling my ramparts of snow;
Ripping the guts of my mountains, looting the beds of my creeks,
Them will I take to my bosom, and speak as a mother speaks.
I am the land that listens, I am the land that broods;
Steeped in eternal beauty, crystalline waters and woods.
Long have I waited lonely, shunned as a thing accurst,
Monstrous, moody, pathetic, the last of th...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...y and carouse,
Dear soul, for all is well."
A huge crag-platform, smooth as burnish'd brass
I chose. The ranged ramparts bright
From level meadow-bases of deep grass
Suddenly scaled the light.
Thereon I built it firm. Of ledge or shelf
The rock rose clear, or winding stair.
My soul would live alone unto herself
In her high palace there.

And "while the world runs round and round," I said,
"Reign thou apart, a quiet king,
Still as, while Saturn whirls, ...Read more of this...

by Robinson, Mary Darby
....

The Summer Sun, gilded the rushy-roof slanting,
The bright dews bespangled its ivy-bound hedge
And above, on the ramparts, the sweet Birds were chanting,
And wild buds thick dappled the clear river's edge.
When the Castle's rich chambers were haunted, and dreary,
The poor little Hovel was still, and secure;
And no robber e'er enter'd, or goblin or fairy,
For the splendours of pride had no charms to allure.

The Lord of the Castle, a proud, surly ruler,
Oft hear...Read more of this...

by Kipling, Rudyard
...w sweeps
 Thy war-ships down the bay!


 HALIFAX

Into the mist my guardian prows put forth,
 Behind the mist my virgin ramparts lie,
The Warden of the Honour of the North,
 Sleepless and veiled am I!


 QUEBEC AND MONTREAL

Peace is our portion. Yet a whisper rose,
 Foolish and causeless, half in jest, half hate.
Now wake we and remember mighty blows,
 And, fearing no man, wait!


 VICTORIA

From East to West the circling word has passed,
 Till West is East beside ou...Read more of this...

by Service, Robert William
...of my youth elate,
Scorning a humdrum fate,
Keyed to adventure high -
Palms against the sky.

Oaks against the sky,
Ramparts of leaves high-hurled,
Staunch to stand and defy
All the winds of the world;
Stalwart and proud and free,
Firing the man in me
To try and again to try -
Oaks against the sky.

Olives against the sky
Of evening, limpidly bright;
Tranquil and soft and shy,
Dreaming in amber light;
Breathing the peace of life,
Ease after toil and strife . ....Read more of this...

by Akhmatova, Anna
...
Distant Laurel belltowers do recoil.

I am trimming on the lilac bushes
Branches, that are now in full flower;
Ramparts of the ancient fortifying
Two old monks are slowly walking over.

Dear world, understood and corporeal,
For me, one unseeing, set alive.
Heal this soul of mine, the King of Heaven,
With the icy comfort of not love.



x x x

We'll be with each other, dear,
All now know we are together,
And the wily laughs and putdowns
Li...Read more of this...

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