Famous Somme Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Somme poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous somme poems. These examples illustrate what a famous somme poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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...affraie, wythe lockes of blodde-red die.
Terroure, emburled yn the thonders rage,
Deathe, lynked to dismaie, dothe ugsomme flie,
Enchafynge echone champyonne war to wage.
Speeres bevyle speres; swerdes upon swerdes engage;
Armoure on armoure dynn, shielde upon shielde;
Ne dethe of thosandes can the warre assuage,
Botte falleynge nombers sable all the feelde.
Sprytes of the bleste, and everych Seyncte ydedde,
Poure owte youre pleasaunce on mie fadres hedde.
VII.
...Read more of this...
by
Chatterton, Thomas
...still ice-bound. Somewhere
The Salado propels irs floes, but the Roosevelt's
Frozen. The Oka is frozen solider
Than the Somme. The Minho slumbers
In winter, nor does the Snake
Remember August. Hilarious, the Canadian
Is solid ice. The Madeira slavers
Across the thawing fields, and the Plata laughs.
The Dvina soaks up the snow. The Sava's
Temperature is above freezing. The Avon
Carols noiselessly. The Drôme presses
Grass banks; the Adige's frozen
Surface is like gray pebbles.
...Read more of this...
by
Ashbery, John
...AN IDYLL
Back from the Somme two Fusiliers
Limped painfully home; the elder said,
S. “Robert, I’ve lived three thousand years
This Summer, and I’m nine parts dead.”
R. “But if that’s truly so,” I cried, “quick, now,
Through these great oaks and see the famous bough
”Where once a nonsense built her nest
With skulls and flowers and all things *****,
In an old boot, with pati...Read more of this...
by
Graves, Robert
...(From Frise on the Somme in February, 1917, in answer to a letter saying: “I am just finishing my ‘Faun’s Holiday.’ I wish you were here to feed him with cherries.”)
Here by a snowbound river
In scrapen holes we shiver,
And like old bitterns we
Boom to you plaintively:
Robert, how can I rhyme
Verses for your desire—
Sleek fauns and cherry-time,
Vague music and green tr...Read more of this...
by
Graves, Robert
...ste,
A tyme of trewe, and tho they gonnen trete,
Hir prisoneres to chaungen, moste and leste,
And for the surplus yeven sommes grete.
This thing anoon was couth in every strete,
Bothe in thassege, in toune, and every-where,
And with the firste it cam to Calkas ere.
Whan Calkas knew this tretis sholde holde,
In consistorie, among the Grekes, sone
He gan in thringe forth, with lordes olde,
And sette him there-as he was wont to done;
And with a chaunged face hem bad a bone,
F...Read more of this...
by
Chaucer, Geoffrey
...
The language of this graveyard ranges from
a bit of Latin for a former Mayor
or those who laid their lives down at the Somme,
the hymnal fragments and the gilded prayer,
how people 'fell asleep in the Good Lord',
brief chisellable bits from the good book
and rhymes whatever length they could afford,
to ****, PISS, **** and (mostly) ****!
Or, more expansively, there's LEEDS v.
the opponent of last week, this week, or next,
and a repertoire of blunt four-letter curses
on the...Read more of this...
by
Harrison, Tony
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