Famous Salute Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Heroic Poem in Praise of Wine

by Hilaire Belloc
 To exalt, enthrone, establish and defend,
To welcome home mankind's mysterious friend
Wine, true begetter of all arts that be;
Wine, privilege of the completely free;
Wine the recorder; wine the sagely strong;
Wine, bright avenger of sly-dealing wrong,
Awake, Ausonian Muse, and sing the vineyard song!

Sing how the Charioteer from Asia came,
And on his front the little dancing flame
Which marked the God-head. Sing the...Read more of this...

Wants Poems And Has Never Rejected Anyone

by Barry Tebb
 Eamer o’ Keefe with your tinge of brogue

And Irish warmth, Daisy and Debjani 

With your karma and cool verse, I salute you.

( III )

"Ecoutez la voix du vent" – listen to the wind’s voice

As Milosz commands "All your griefs,

My sad ones, are in vain" but offering

In recompense soaring sonatas which remain unread

Untranslated, relegated to the reserve stock

Of the Institut...Read more of this...

Plutonian Ode

by Allen Ginsberg
 I

What new element before us unborn in nature? Is there
 a new thing under the Sun?
At last inquisitive Whitman a modern epic, detonative,
 Scientific theme
First penned unmindful by Doctor Seaborg with poison-
 ous hand, named for Death's planet through the 
 sea beyond Uranus
whose chthonic ore fathers this magma-teared Lord of 
 Hades, Sire of avenging Furies, billionaire Hell-
...Read more of this...

The Quaker Graveyard in Nantucket

by Robert Lowell
 (For Warren Winslow, Dead At Sea)
 Let man have dominion over the fishes of the sea and
 the fowls of the air and the beasts and the whole earth,
 and every creeping creature that moveth upon the earth.

 I
A brackish reach of shoal off Madaket--
The sea was still breaking violently and night
Had steamed into our North Atlantic Fleet,
When the...Read more of this...

Raising The Flag

by Robert William Service
 Behold! the Spanish flag they're raising
Before the Palace courtyard gate;
To watch its progress bold and blazing
Two hundred patient people wait.
Though bandsmen play the anthem bravely
The silken emblem seems to lag;
Two hundred people watch it gravely -
But only two salute the flag.

Fine-clad and arrogant of manner
The twain are like dark dons of old,
And to that high and haughty banner
Uplifted palms...Read more of this...

States!

by Walt Whitman
 STATES! 
Were you looking to be held together by the lawyers? 
By an agreement on a paper? Or by arms? 

Away! 
I arrive, bringing these, beyond all the forces of courts and arms,
These! to hold you together as firmly as the earth itself is held together. 

The old breath of life, ever new, 
Here! I pass it by contact...Read more of this...

Sonnet LXXXVII

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET LXXXVII. Perseguendomi Amor al luogo usato. HE IS BEWILDERED AT THE UNEXPECTED ARRIVAL OF LAURA.  As Love his arts in haunts familiar tried,Watchful as one expecting war is found,Who all foresees and guards the passes round,I in the armour of old thoughts relied:Turning, I saw a shadow at my sideRead more of this...

487. The Lover's Morning Salute to his Mistress

by Robert Burns
 SLEEP’ST thou, or wak’st thou, fairest creature?
 Rosy morn now lifts his eye,
Numbering ilka bud which Nature
 Waters wi’ the tears o’ joy.
 Now, to the streaming fountain,
 Or up the heathy mountain,
The hart, hind, and roe, freely, wildly-wanton stray;
 In twining hazel bowers,
 Its lay the linnet pours,
 The laverock to the sky
 Ascends, wi’ sangs o’ joy,
While...Read more of this...

The Soul has Bandaged moments --

by Emily Dickinson
 The Soul has Bandaged moments --
When too appalled to stir --
She feels some ghastly Fright come up
And stop to look at her --

Salute her -- with long fingers --
Caress her freezing hair --
Sip, Goblin, from the very lips
The Lover -- hovered -- o'er --
Unworthy, that a thought so mean
Accost a Theme -- so -- fair --

The soul has moments...Read more of this...

The Spirits Salute

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 THE hero's noble shade stands high

On yonder turret grey;
And as the ship is sailing by,

He speeds it on his way.

"See with what strength these sinews thrill'd!

This heart, how firm and wild!
These bones, what knightly marrow fill'd!

This cup, how bright it smil'd!

"Half of my life I strove and fought,

And half I calmly pass'd;
And thou, oh ship with beings fraught,

Sail safely...Read more of this...

The Distant Winter

by Philip Levine
 from an officer's diary during the last war

I 

The sour daylight cracks through my sleep-caked lids. 
"Stephan! Stephan!" The rattling orderly 
Comes on a trot, the cold tray in his hands: 
Toast whitening with oleo, brown tea, 

Yesterday's napkins, and an opened letter. 
"Your asthma's bad, old man." He doesn't answer, 
And turns to the grey windows and the...Read more of this...

Sonnet CXCVIII

by Francesco Petrarch
[Pg 206] SONNET CXCVIII. O cameretta che già fosti un porto. HE NO LONGER FINDS RELIEF IN SOLITUDE.  Thou little chamber'd haven to the woesWhose daily tempest overwhelms my soul!From shame, I in Heaven's light my grief control;Thou art its fountain, which each night o'erflows.My couch! that oft...Read more of this...

Bacchus

by Ralph Waldo Emerson
BRING me wine but wine which never grew 
In the belly of the grape  
Or grew on vine whose tap-roots reaching through 
Under the Andes to the Cape  
Suffer'd no savour of the earth to 'scape. 5 

Let its grapes the morn salute 
From a nocturnal root  
Which feels the acrid juice 
Of Styx and Erebus; 
And...Read more of this...

To Penshurst

by Ben Jonson
  II. — TO PENSHURST.                Thou hast no lantern whereof tales are told ; Or stair, or courts ;  but stand'st an ancient pile, And these grudg'd at, art reverenced the while. Thou joy'st in better marks, of soil, of air, Of wood, of water ;  therein thou art fair. Thou hast thy walks for health, as well as sport :...Read more of this...

The First Grenadier of France

by William Topaz McGonagall
 'Twas in a certain regiment of French Grenadiers,
A touching and beautiful custom was observed many years;
Which was meant to commemorate the heroism of a departed comrade,
And when the companies assembled for parade,
There was one name at roll call to which no answer was made 

It was that of the noble La Tour d'Auvergne,
The first Grenadier of France, heroic and...Read more of this...

Ii. Legend

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 THERE lived in the desert a holy man

To whom a goat-footed Faun one day
Paid a visit, and thus began

To his surprise: "I entreat thee to pray
That grace to me and my friends may be given,
That we may be able to mount to Heaven,
For great is our thirst for heav'nly bliss."
The holy man made answer to this:
"Much danger is lurking...Read more of this...

Ballata V

by Francesco Petrarch
BALLATA V. Volgendo gli occhi al mio novo colore. HER KIND SALUTE SAVED HIM FROM DEATH.  Late as those eyes on my sunk cheek inclined,Whose paleness to the world seems of the grave,Compassion moved you to that greeting kind,Whose soft smile to my worn heart spirit gave.The poor frail life which...Read more of this...

Salute

by James Schuyler
 Past is past, and if one
remembers what one meant
to do and never did, is
not to have thought to do
enough? Like that gather-
ing of one each I
planned, to gather one
of each kind of clover,
daisy, paintbrush that
grew in that field
the cabin stood in and
study them one afternoon
before they wilted. Past
is past. I salute
that various field....Read more of this...

Sonnet 41 - I thank all who have loved me in their hearts

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
 XLI

I thank all who have loved me in their hearts,
With thanks and love from mine. Deep thanks to all
Who paused a little near the prison-wall
To hear my music in its louder parts
Ere they went onward, each one to the mart's
Or temple's occupation, beyond call.
But thou, who, in my voice's sink and fall
When the sob took it, thy divinest Art's
Own...Read more of this...

Flower-salute

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 THIS nosegay,--'twas I dress'd it,--

Greets thee a thousand times!
Oft stoop'd I, and caress'd it,

Ah! full a thousand times,
And 'gainst my bosom press'd it

A hundred thousand times!

1815.*...Read more of this...

A Coin

by Carl Sandburg
 YOUR western heads here cast on money,
You are the two that fade away together,
Partners in the mist.

Lunging buffalo shoulder,
Lean Indian face,
We who come after where you are gone
Salute your forms on the new nickel.

You are
To us:
The past.

Runners
On the prairie:
Good-by....Read more of this...

The Mother-Lodge

by Rudyard Kipling
 There was Rundle, Station Master,
 An' Beazeley of the Rail,
An' 'Ackman, Commissariat,
 An' Donkin' o' the Jail;
An' Blake, Conductor-Sargent,
 Our Master twice was 'e,
With 'im that kept the Europe-shop,
 Old Framjee Eduljee.

Outside -- "Sergeant! Sir! Salute! Salaam!"
Inside -- "Brother", an' it doesn't do no 'arm.
We met upon the Level an' we parted on the Square,
An' I was Junior Deacon...Read more of this...

Golden Days

by Robert William Service
 Another day of toil and strife,
Another page so white,
Within that fateful Log of Life
That I and all must write;
Another page without a stain
To make of as I may,
That done, I shall not see again
Until the Judgment Day.

Ah, could I, could I backward turn
The pages of that Book,
How often would I blench and burn!
How often loathe to look!
What pages would...Read more of this...

The Duties of an Aide-de-camp

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 Oh, some folk think vice-royalty is festive and hilarious, 
The duties of an A.D.C. are manifold and various, 
So listen, whilst I tell in song 
The duties of an aide-de-cong. 
Whatsoever betide 
To the Governor's side 
We must stick -- or the public would eat him -- 
For each bounder we see 
Says, "Just introduce me 
To His Lordship...Read more of this...

Phillis Or the Progress of Love

by Jonathan Swift
 Desponding Phillis was endu'd 
With ev'ry Talent of a Prude, 
She trembled when a Man drew near; 
Salute her, and she turn'd her Ear: 
If o'er against her you were plac't 
She durst not look above your Wa[i]st; 
She'd rather take you to her Bed 
Than let you see her dress her Head; 
In Church you heard her thro'...Read more of this...

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