Famous Shout Poems by Famous Poets

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

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My Foe

by Robert William Service
 A Belgian Priest-Soldier Speaks;

GURR! You cochon! Stand and fight!
Show your mettle! Snarl and bite!
Spawn of an accursed race,
Turn and meet me face to face!
Here amid the wreck and rout
Let us grip and have it out!
Here where ruins rock and reel
Let us settle, steel to steel!
Look! Our houses, how they spit
Sparks from brands your friends have lit.
See! Our gutters running...Read more of this...

To Ye Kings

by Victor Hugo
 When the Christians were doomed to the lions of old 
 By the priest and the praetor, combined to uphold 
 An idolatrous cause, 
 Forth they came while the vast Colosseum throughout 
 Gathered thousands looked on, and they fell 'mid the shout 
 Of "the People's" applause. 
 
 On the eve of that day of their...Read more of this...

I dreaded that first Robin so

by Emily Dickinson
 I dreaded that first Robin, so,
But He is mastered, now,
I'm accustomed to Him grown,
He hurts a little, though --

I thought If I could only live
Till that first Shout got by --
Not all Pianos in the Woods
Had power to mangle me --

I dared not meet the Daffodils --
For fear their Yellow Gown
Would pierce me with a fashion
So foreign to my...Read more of this...

Christmas In The Heart

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
The snow lies deep upon the ground,
And winter's brightness all around
Decks bravely out the forest sere,
With jewels of the brave old year.
The coasting crowd upon the hill
With some new spirit seems to thrill;
And all the temple bells achime.
Ring out the glee of Christmas time.
In happy homes the brown oak-bough
Vies with the red-gemmed holly now;
And here and there, like pearls, there...Read more of this...

Hallelujah: A Sestina

by Robert Francis
 A wind's word, the Hebrew Hallelujah.
I wonder they never gave it to a boy
(Hal for short) boy with wind-wild hair.
It means Praise God, as well it should since praise
Is what God's for. Why didn't they call my father
Hallelujah instead of Ebenezer? 

Eben, of course, but christened Ebenezer,
Product of Nova Scotia (hallelujah).
Daniel, a country doctor, was his father
And my father...Read more of this...

The Bombardment

by Amy Lowell
 Slowly, without force, the rain drops into the 
city. It stops a moment
on the carved head of Saint John, then slides on again, slipping 
and trickling
over his stone cloak. It splashes from the lead conduit 
of a gargoyle,
and falls from it in turmoil on the stones in the Cathedral square.
Where are the people, and why does the fretted steeple...Read more of this...

A New Years Resolution to Leave Dundee

by William Topaz McGonagall
 Welcome! thrice welcome! to the year 1893,
For it is the year I intend to leave Dundee,
Owing to the treatment I receive,
Which does my heart sadly grieve.
Every morning when I go out
The ignorant rabble they do shout
'There goes Mad McGonagall'
In derisive shouts as loud as they can bawl,
And lifts stones and snowballs, throws them at me;
And such actions are shameful...Read more of this...

The World

by George Herbert
 1 I saw Eternity the other night,
2 Like a great ring of pure and endless light,
3 All calm, as it was bright;
4 And round beneath it, Time in hours, days, years,
5 Driv'n by the spheres
6 Like a vast shadow mov'd; in which the world
7 And all her train were hurl'd.
8 The doting lover in his quaintest strain
9 Did there...Read more of this...

The Volunteer

by Robert William Service
 Sez I: My Country calls? Well, let it call.
 I grins perlitely and declines wiv thanks.
Go, let 'em plaster every blighted wall,
 'Ere's ONE they don't stampede into the ranks.
Them politicians with their greasy ways;
 Them empire-grabbers -- fight for 'em? No fear!
I've seen this mess a-comin' from the days
 Of Algyserious and Aggydear:
 I've felt me passion rise...Read more of this...

The Glass On The Bar

by Henry Lawson
 Three bushmen one morning rode up to an inn, 
And one of them called for the drinks with a grin; 
They'd only returned from a trip to the North, 
And, eager to greet them, the landlord came forth. 
He absently poured out a glass of Three Star. 
And set down that drink with the rest on the bar. 

`There,...Read more of this...

Tortoise Shout

by D. H. Lawrence
 I thought he was dumb, said he was dumb,
Yet I've heard him cry.
First faint scream,
Out of life's unfathomable dawn,
Far off, so far, like a madness, under the horizon's dawning rim,
Far, far off, far scream.
Tortoise in extremis.
Why were we crucified into sex?
Why were we not left rounded off, and finished in ourselves,
As we began,
As he certainly began, so perfectly alone?

A...Read more of this...

The Favorite Sultana

by Victor Hugo
 ("N'ai-je pas pour toi, belle juive.") 
 
 {XII., Oct. 27, 1828.} 


 To please you, Jewess, jewel! 
 I have thinned my harem out! 
 Must every flirting of your fan 
 Presage a dying shout? 
 
 Grace for the damsels tender 
 Who have fear to hear your laugh, 
 For seldom gladness gilds your lips...Read more of this...

There Was A Saviour

by Dylan Thomas
 There was a saviour
 Rarer than radium,
 Commoner than water, crueller than truth;
 Children kept from the sun
 Assembled at his tongue
 To hear the golden note turn in a groove,
Prisoners of wishes locked their eyes
In the jails and studies of his keyless smiles.

 The voice of children says
 From a lost wilderness
 There was calm to be done...Read more of this...

Christmas Holidays

by Thomas Hood
 Along the Woodford road there comes a noise 
Of wheels, and Mr. Rounding's neat post-chaise 
Struggles along, drawn by a pair of bays, 
With Reverend Mr. Crow and six small boys, 
Who ever and anon declare their joys 
With trumping horns and juvenile huzzas, 
At going home to spend their Christmas days, 
And changing learning's pains for pleasure's toys....Read more of this...

Dream Song 120: Foes I sniff when I have less to shout

by John Berryman
 Foes I sniff, when I have less to shout
or murmur. Pals alone enormous sounds
downward & up bring real.
Loss, deaths, terror. Over & out,
beloved: thanks for cabbage on my wounds:
I'll feed you how I feel:-”

of avocado moist with lemon, yea
formaldehyde & rotting sardines O
in our appointed time
I would I could a touch more fully say
my consentless mind. The senses are...Read more of this...

The Wreck of the Indian Chief

by William Topaz McGonagall
 'Twas on the 8th of January 1881,
That a terrific gale along the English Channel ran,
And spread death and disaster in its train,
Whereby the "Indian Chief" vessel was tossed on the raging main. 

She was driven ashore on the Goodwin Sands,
And the good captain fearlessly issued hie commands,
"Come, my men, try snd save the vessel, work with all your might,"
Although...Read more of this...

Sir Galahad a Christmas Mystery

by William Morris
 It is the longest night in all the year,
Near on the day when the Lord Christ was born;
Six hours ago I came and sat down here,
And ponder'd sadly, wearied and forlorn.

The winter wind that pass'd the chapel door,
Sang out a moody tune, that went right well
With mine own thoughts: I look'd down on the floor,
Between my feet, until I...Read more of this...

The Man Who Raised Charlestown

by Henry Lawson
 They were hanging men in Buckland who would not cheer King George – 
The parson from his pulpit and the blacksmith from his forge; 
They were hanging men and brothers, and the stoutest heart was down, 
When a quiet man from Buckland rode at dusk to raise Charlestown. 

Not a young man in his glory filled with patriotic fire,...Read more of this...

466. Ode for General Washington's Birthday

by Robert Burns
 NO Spartan tube, no Attic shell,
 No lyre Æolian I awake;
’Tis liberty’s bold note I swell,
 Thy harp, Columbia, let me take!
See gathering thousands, while I sing,
A broken chain exulting bring,
 And dash it in a tyrant’s face,
And dare him to his very beard,
And tell him he no more is feared—
 No more the despot of Columbia’s race!
A tyrant’s...Read more of this...

The Discovery

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
These are the days of elfs and fays:
Who says that with the dreams of myth,
These imps and elves disport themselves?
Ah no, along the paths of song
Do all the tiny folk belong.
Round all our homes,
Kobolds and gnomes do daily cling,
Then nightly fling their lanterns out.
And shout on shout, they join the rout,
And sing, and sing, within the sweet enchanted ring.
Where gleamed...Read more of this...

Thirty Bob a Week

by John Davidson
 I couldn't touch a stop and turn a screw,
And set the blooming world a-work for me,
Like such as cut their teeth -- I hope, like you --
On the handle of a skeleton gold key;
I cut mine on a leek, which I eat it every week:
I'm a clerk at thirty bob as you can see.

But I don't allow it's luck...Read more of this...

The Rattling Boy from Dublin

by William Topaz McGonagall
 I'm a rattling boy from Dublin town,
I courted a girl called Biddy Brown,
Her eyes they were as black as sloes,
She had black hair and an aquiline nose. 

Chorus --

Whack fal de da, fal de darelido,
Whack fal de da, fal de darelay,
Whack fal de da, fal de darelido,
Whack fal de da, fal de darelay. 

One night I met her with...Read more of this...

The Ring Of Polycrates - A Ballad

by Friedrich von Schiller
 Upon his battlements he stood,
And downward gazed in joyous mood,
On Samos' Isle, that owned his sway,
"All this is subject to my yoke;"
To Egypt's monarch thus he spoke,--
"That I am truly blest, then, say!"

"The immortals' favor thou hast known!
Thy sceptre's might has overthrown
All those who once were like to thee.
Yet to avenge them one lives still;
I cannot call thee blest,...Read more of this...

Retired Shopman

by Robert William Service
 He had the grocer's counter-stoop,
That little man so grey and neat;
His moustache had a doleful droop,
He hailed me in the slushy street.
"I've sold my shop," he said to me,
Cupping his hand behind his ear.
"My deafness got so bad, you see,
Folks had to shout to make me hear."

He sighed and sadly shook his head;
The hand he gave was chill as...Read more of this...

Requiescat In Pace!

by Jean Ingelow
My heart is sick awishing and awaiting:
  The lad took up his knapsack, he went, he went his way;
And I looked on for his coming, as a prisoner through the grating
  Looks and longs and longs and wishes for its opening day.
On the wild purple mountains, all alone with no other,
  The strong terrible mountains he longed,...Read more of this...

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