Famous Slaying Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Slaying poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous slaying poems. These examples illustrate what a famous slaying poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Kipling, Rudyard
...nt.
Before the years reborn behold
Themselves with stranger eye,
And the sport-making Gods of old,
Like Samson slaying, die,
Many shall hear
The all-pregnant sphere,
Bow to the birth and sweat, but--speech denied--
Sit dumb or--dealt in part--fall weak and wide.
Yet instant to fore-shadowed need
The eternal balance swings;
That winged men, the Fates may breed
So soon as Fate hath wings.
These shall possess
Our littleness,
And in the imperial task ...Read more of this...
by
Crowley, Aleister
...mbrace all time
As my arm rings your waist.
Space -you surpass, sublime,
As, taking me, we taste
Omnipotence, sense slaying sense,
Soul slaying soul, omniscience....Read more of this...
by
Wilcox, Ella Wheeler
...ing plains is there not room
For man and bison, that he seals its doom?
What pleasure lies and what seductive charm
In slaying with no purpose but to harm?
Alas, that man, unable to create,
Should thirst forever to exterminate,
And in destruction find his fiercest joy.
The gods alone create, gods only should destroy.
LIII.
The flying hosts a straggling bull pursue;
Unerring aim, the skillful Custer drew.
The wounded beast turns madly in despair
And man...Read more of this...
by
Field, Eugene
...the barrel of tin,
The "bang" it came out where the bullet went in -
The right kind of weapon I think you'll agree
For slaying all fowl that go "Fiddle-dee-dee"!
The brave little soldier quoth never a word,
But he up and he drew a straight bead on that bird;
And, while that vain creature provokingly sang,
The gun it went off with a terrible bang!
Then loud laughed the youth - "By my Bottle," cried he,
I've put a quietus on 'Fiddle-dee-dee'!"
Out came then Dear-Mother-Mine,...Read more of this...
by
Lindsay, Vachel
...the earth with valor,
They heed their King's command.
Onward the line advances,
Shaking the hills with power,
Slaying the hidden demons,
The lions that devour.
No bloodshed in the wrestling, —
But souls new-born arise —
The nations growing kinder,
The child-hearts growing wise.
What is the final ending?
The issue, can we know?
Will Christ outlive Mohammed?
Will Kali's altar go?
This is our faith tremendous, —
Our wild hope, who shall scorn, —
Th...Read more of this...
by
Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...and said:
'I will go back a little to my lord,
And I will tell him all their caitiff talk;
For, be he wroth even to slaying me,
Far liefer by his dear hand had I die,
Than that my lord should suffer loss or shame.'
Then she went back some paces of return,
Met his full frown timidly firm, and said;
'My lord, I saw three bandits by the rock
Waiting to fall on you, and heard them boast
That they would slay you, and possess your horse
And armour, and your damsel ...Read more of this...
by
Swinburne, Algernon Charles
...divideth us.
Thy heart is light as a leaf of a tree;
But mine goes forth among sea-gulfs hollow
To the place of the slaying of Itylus,
The feast of Daulis, the Thracian sea.
O swallow, sister, O rapid swallow,
I pray thee sing not a little space.
Are not the roofs and the lintels wet?
The woven web that was plain to follow,
The small slain body, the flower-like face,
Can I remember if thou forget?
O sister, sister, thy first-begotten!
The hands that cling and th...Read more of this...
by
Laurence Dunbar, Paul
...="_blank">[Pg 23]Born out of travail and sorrow and pain;
Born in the battle where fleet Death was flying,
Slaying with sabre-stroke bloody and fell;
Born where the heroes and martyrs were dying,
Torn by the fury of bullet and shell.
Ah, but the day is past: silent the rattle,
And the confusion that followed the fight.
Peace to the heroes who died in the battle,
Martyrs to truth and the crowning of Right!
Out of the blood of a conflict fraternal,
Out of t...Read more of this...
by
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...below him,
Till at length Kayoshk, the sea-gull,
Perched upon a crag above them,
Shouted: "It is Pau-Puk-Keewis!
He is slaying us by hundreds!
Send a message to our brother,
Tidings send to Hiawatha!"...Read more of this...
by
Arnold, Matthew
...rave.
And I will spare thy host; yea, let them go!
Let them all cross the Oxus back in peace!
What should I do with slaying any more?
For would that all whom I have ever slain
Might be once more alive; my bitterest foes
And they who were call'd champions in their time,
And through whose death I won that fame I have--
And I were nothing but a common man,
A poor, mean soldier, and without renown,
So thou mightest live too, my son, my son!
Or rather would that I, even I myse...Read more of this...
by
Spenser, Edmund
...harpely still, and spare me not,
but glory thinke to make these cruel stoures,
ye cruell one, what glory can be got,
in slaying him that would liue gladly yours?
Make peace therefore, and graunt me timely grace.
that al my wounds will heale in little space....Read more of this...
by
Spenser, Edmund
...y more augment my miseryes.
But when ye haue shewed all extremityes,
then thinke how litle glory ye haue gayned:
by slaying him, whose lyfe though ye despyse,
mote haue your life in honour long maintayned.
But by his death which some perhaps will mone,
ye shall condemned be of many a one....Read more of this...
by
Chesterton, G K
...t a black laughter died;
And Alfred flung his shield to earth
And smote his breast and cried--
"I wronged a man to his slaying,
And a woman to her shame,
And once I looked on a sworn maid
That was wed to the Holy Name.
"And once I took my neighbour's wife,
That was bound to an eastland man,
In the starkness of my evil youth,
Before my griefs began.
"People, if you have any prayers,
Say prayers for me:
And lay me under a Christian stone
In that lost land I thought m...Read more of this...
by
Morris, William
...A great queen such as I
Having sinn'd this way, straight her conscience sears;
"And afterwards she liveth hatefully,
Slaying and poisoning, certes never weeps,--
Gauwaine, be friends now, speak me lovingly.
"Do I not see how God's dear pity creeps
All through your frame, and trembles in your mouth?
Remember in what grave your mother sleeps,
"Buried in some place far down in the south,
Men are forgetting as I speak to you;
By her head sever'd in that awful drouth
...Read more of this...
by
Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...And four great zones of sculpture, set betwixt
With many a mystic symbol, gird the hall:
And in the lowest beasts are slaying men,
And in the second men are slaying beasts,
And on the third are warriors, perfect men,
And on the fourth are men with growing wings,
And over all one statue in the mould
Of Arthur, made by Merlin, with a crown,
And peaked wings pointed to the Northern Star.
And eastward fronts the statue, and the crown
And both the wings are made of g...Read more of this...
by
Auden, Wystan Hugh (W H)
...ning breastsCried out in dismayAt what the god had wroughtTo please her son, the strongIron-hearted man-slaying AchillesWho would not live long....Read more of this...
by
Nicolson, Adela Florence Cory
...ze,
Of southern noontides and eastern nights,
Where love grew frantic with strange delights,
While men were slaying and maidens danced,
Till I, who listened, lay still, entranced.
Then, swift as a swallow heading south,
I kissed your mouth!
One night when the plains were bathed in blood
From sunset light in a crimson flood,
We wandered under the young teak trees
Whose branches whined in the light night breeze;
You led me...Read more of this...
by
von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang
...ve the mud-track
With thy fiery pinions.
He will wander,
As, with flowery feet,
Over Deucalion's dark flood,
Python-slaying, light, glorious,
Pythius Apollo.
Him whom thou ne'er leavest, Genius,
Thou wilt place upon thy fleecy pinion
When he sleepeth on the rock,--
Thou wilt shelter with thy guardian wing
In the forest's midnight hour.
Him whom thou ne'er leavest, Genius,
Thou wilt wrap up warmly
In the snow-drift;
Tow'rd the warmth approach the Muses,
Tow'rd th...Read more of this...
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