Famous Traitor Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Traitor poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous traitor poems. These examples illustrate what a famous traitor poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Rudyard Kipling
1892
The freed dove flew to the Rajah's tower--
Fled from the slaughter of Moslem kings--
And the thorns have covered the city of Guar.
Dove--dove--oh, homing dove!
Little white traitor, with woe on thy wings!
The Rajah of Dacca rode under the wall;
He set in his bosom a dove of flight--
"If she return, be sure that I fall."
Dove--dove--oh, homing dove!
Pressed...Read more of this...
by
Francesco Petrarch
SONNET LXXXI. Cesare, poi che 'l traditor d' Egitto. THE COUNTENANCE DOES NOT ALWAYS TRULY INDICATE THE HEART. When Egypt's traitor Pompey's honour'd headTo Cæsar sent; then, records so relate,To shroud a gladness manifestly great,Some feigned tears the specious monarch shed:And, when misfortune her dark mantle spreadO'er Hannibal, and his...Read more of this...
by
Vachel Lindsay
I
I hate this yoke; for the world's sake here put it on:
Knowing 'twill weigh as much on you till life is gone.
Knowing you love your freedom dear, as I love mine—
Knowing that love unchained has been our life's great wine:
Our one great wine (yet spent too soon, and serving none;
Of the two cups free love at last the deadly...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
Of Silken Speech and Specious Shoe
A Traitor is the Bee
His service to the newest Grace
Present continually
His Suit a chance
His Troth a Term
Protracted as the Breeze
Continual Ban propoundeth He
Continual Divorce....Read more of this...
by
Robert Browning
My first thought was, he lied in every word,
That hoary cripple, with malicious eye
Askance to watch the working of his lie
On mine, and mouth scarce able to afford
Suppression of the glee, that pursed and scored
Its edge, at one more victim gained thereby.
What else should he be set for, with his staff?
What, save to waylay with his lies, ensnare
All travellers who...Read more of this...
by
Friedrich von Schiller
A gentle was Fridolin,
And he his mistress dear,
Savern's fair Countess, honored in
All truth and godly fear.
She was so meek, and, ah! so good!
Yet each wish of her wayward mood,
He would have studied to fulfil,
To please his God, with earnest will.
From the first hour when daylight shone
Till rang the vesper-chime,
He lived but for her will alone,
And deemed e'en that scarce...Read more of this...
by
Alice Walker
(Thinking of Lorraine Hansberry)
We must say it all, and as clearly
Trying to bury us.
As we can. For, even before we are dead,
Were we black? Were we women? Were we gay?
Were we the wrong shade of black? Were we yellow?
Did we, God forbid, love the wrong person, country?
Or politics? Were we Agnes Smedley or John Brown?
But, most of all, did we...Read more of this...
by
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Oft have I seen at some cathedral door
.
A laborer, pausing in the dust and heat,
.
Lay down his burden, and with reverent feet
.
Enter, and cross himself, and on the floor
.
Kneel to repeat his paternoster o'er;
.
Far off the noises of the world retreat;
.
The loud vociferations of the street
.
Become an undistinguishable roar.
.
So, as I...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
I had a guinea golden --
I lost it in the sand --
And tho' the sum was simple
And pounds were in the land --
Still, had it such a value
Unto my frugal eye --
That when I could not find it --
I sat me down to sigh.
I had a crimson Robin --
Who sang full many a day
But when the woods were painted,
He,...Read more of this...
by
Rudyard Kipling
More than a hundred years ago, in a great battle fought near Delhi,
an Indian Prince rode fifty miles after the day was lost
with a beggar-girl, who had loved him and followed him in all his camps,
on his saddle-bow. He lost the girl when almost within sight of safety.
A Maratta trooper tells the story: --
The wreath of banquet overnight lay...Read more of this...
by
Alfred Lord Tennyson
Athelstan King,
Lord among Earls,
Bracelet-bestower and
Baron of Barons,
He with his brother,
Edmund Atheling,
Gaining a lifelong
Glory in battle,
Slew with the sword-edge
There by Brunanburh,
Brake the shield-wall,
Hew'd the lindenwood,
Hack'd the battleshield,
Sons of Edward with hammer'd brands.
Theirs was a greatness
Got from their Grandsires--
Theirs that so often in
Strife with their enemies
Struck for their hoards and their hearths and their homes.
Bow'd the spoiler,
Bent the Scotsman,
Fell...Read more of this...
by
William Topaz McGonagall
Alas! now o'er the civilised world there hangs a gloom
For brave General Gordon, that was killed in Khartoum,
He was a Christian hero, and a soldier of the Cross,
And to England his death will be a very great loss.
He was very cool in temper, generous and brave,
The friend of the poor, the sick, and the slave;
And many a poor...Read more of this...
by
John Dryden
Farewell, ungrateful traitor!
Farewell, my perjur'd swain!
Let never injur'd woman
Believe a man again.
The pleasure of possessing
Surpasses all expressing,
But 'tis too short a blessing,
And love too long a pain.
'Tis easy to deceive us
In pity of your pain,
But when we love, you leave us
To rail at you in vain.
Before we...Read more of this...
by
Eugene Field
Aha! a traitor in the camp,
A rebel strangely bold,--
A lisping, laughing, toddling scamp,
Not more than four years old!
To think that I, who've ruled alone
So proudly in the past,
Should be ejected from my throne
By my own son at last!
He trots his treason to and fro,
As only babies can,
And says he'll be his mamma's beau
When he's a "gweat, big man"!
You stingy...Read more of this...
by
Robert Browning
That second time they hunted me
From hill to plain, from shore to sea,
And Austria, hounding far and wide
Her blood-hounds through the countryside,
Breathed hot and instant on my trace,—
I made six days a hiding-place
Of that dry green old aqueduct
Where I and Charles, when boys, have plucked
The fire-flies from the roof above,
Bright creeping throuoh the moss they love.
—How long it...Read more of this...
by
Isaac Watts
With God is terrible majesty.
Terrible God, that reign'st on high,
How awful is thy thund'ring hand!
Thy fiery bolts, how fierce they fly!
Nor can all earth or hell withstand.
This the old rebel angels knew,
And Satan fell beneath thy frown;
Thine arrows struck the traitor through,
And weighty vengeance sunk him down.
This Sodom felt, and feels it still,
And roars beneath th' eternal load:
"With endless...Read more of this...
by
Christina Rossetti
God strengthen me to bear myself;
That heaviest weight of all to bear,
Inalienable weight of care.
All others are outside myself;
I lock my door and bar them out
The turmoil, tedium, gad-about.
I lock my door upon myself,
And bar them out; but who shall wall
Self from myself, most loathed of all?
If I could once lay down myself,
And start...Read more of this...
by
Rudyard Kipling
"For here lay the excellent wisdom of him that built Mansoul, thatthe
walls could never be broken down nor hurt by the most mighty adverse
potentate unless the townsmen gave consent thereto."--Bunyan's Holy War.)
A tinker out of Bedford,
A vagrant oft in quod,
A privet under Fairfax,
A minister of God--
Two hundred years and thirty
Ere Armageddon came
His single hand portrayed it,
And Bunyan...Read more of this...
by
Andrew Barton Paterson
Scene: Federal Political Arena
A darkened cave. In the middle, a cauldron, boiling.
Enter the three witches.
1ST WITCH: Thrice hath the Federal Jackass brayed.
2ND WITCH: Once the Bruce-Smith War-horse neighed.
3RD WITCH: So Georgie comes, 'tis time, 'tis time,
Around the cauldron to chant our rhyme.
1ST WITCH: In the cauldron boil and bake
Fillet of a...Read more of this...
by
Sir Walter Scott
Where shall the lover rest
Whom the fates sever
From the true maiden's breast,
Parted for ever?--
Where, through groves deep and high,
Sounds the fair billow,
Where early violets die,
Under the willow.
Chorus.
Soft shall be his pillow.
There, through the summer day,
Cool streams are laving;
There, while the tempests sway,
Scarce are boughs waving;
There, thy rest shall...Read more of this...
by
Sir Thomas Wyatt
My mother's maids, when they did sew and spin,
They sang sometime a song of the field mouse,
That, for because her livelood was but thin,
Would needs go seek her townish sister's house.
She thought herself endurèd too much pain;
The stormy blasts her cave so sore did souse
That when the furrows swimmèd with the rain,
She must lie cold and wet in sorry...Read more of this...
by
Rudyard Kipling
One moment past our bodies cast
No shadow on the plain;
Now clear and black they stride our track,
And we run home again.
In morning-hush, each rock and bush
Stands hard, and high, and raw:
Then give the Call: "Good rest to all
That keep the Jungle Law!"
Now horn and pelt our peoples melt
In covert to abide;
Now, crouched and still,...Read more of this...
by
Robert Burns
Chorus.—Awa’ Whigs, awa’!
Awa’ Whigs, awa’!
Ye’re but a pack o’ traitor louns,
Ye’ll do nae gude at a’.
OUR thrissles flourish’d fresh and fair,
And bonie bloom’d our roses;
But Whigs cam’ like a frost in June,
An’ wither’d a’ our posies.
Awa’ Whigs, &c.
Our ancient crown’s fa’en in the dust—
Deil blin’ them wi’ the stoure o’t!
An’ write their names...Read more of this...
by
Rudyard Kipling
1918
This is the State above the Law.
The State exists for the State alone."
[This is a gland at the back of the jaw,
And an answering lump by the collar-bone.],
Some die shouting in gas or fire;
Some die silent, by shell and shot.
Some die desperate, caught on the wire -
Some die suddenly. This will not.
"Regis suprema voluntas Lex"
[It...Read more of this...
by
Robert Burns
NOW Nature hangs her mantle green
On every blooming tree,
And spreads her sheets o’ daisies white
Out o’er the grassy lea;
Now Phoebus cheers the crystal streams,
And glads the azure skies;
But nought can glad the weary wight
That fast in durance lies.
Now laverocks wake the merry morn
Aloft on dewy wing;
The merle, in his noontide bow’r,
Makes woodland echoes...Read more of this...
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