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Famous Trojan Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Crowley, Aleister
...leapt as swift to-night
As it had never left the light! 

For fiercer from the South
Still flames your cruel hair,
And Trojan Helen's mouth
Still not so ripe and rare
As Helena's -nor love nor youth
So leaps with lust or thrills with truth.

Helena, still we hold
Flesh firmer, still we mix
Black hair with hair as gold.
Life has but served to fix
Our hearts; love lingers on the tongue,
And who loves once is always young.

The stars are still the same;
The changefu...Read more of this...



by Kizer, Carolyn
...ng - O rare
arms that are braceleted and white and bare

arms that were lovely Helen's, in whose name
Greek slaughtered Trojan. Helen was to blame.

Scape-nanny call her; wars for turf
and profit don't sound glamorous enough.

Mythologize your women! None escape.
Europe was named from an act of bestial rape:

Eponymous girl on bull-back, he intent
on scattering sperm across a continent.

Old Zeus refused to take the rap.
It's not his name in big print ...Read more of this...

by Schiller, Friedrich von
...ve them birth
Turn they now the ships about,
As they seek their native earth.

And in rows, all mournfully,
Sat the Trojan women there,--
Beat their breasts in agony,
Pallid, with dishevelled hair.
In the feast of joy so glad
Mingled they the song of woe,
Weeping o'er their fortunes sad,
In their country's overthrow.
"Land beloved, oh, fare thee well!
By our foreign masters led,
Far from home we're doomed to dwell,--
Ah, how happy are the dead!"

Soon the blood by...Read more of this...

by Alighieri, Dante
...ueen, who lost her realm for Antony." 

 And after these, amidst that windy train, 
 Helen, who soaked in blood the Trojan plain, 
 And great Achilles I saw, at last whose feet 
 The same net trammelled; and Tristram, Paris, he showed; 
 And thousand other along the fated road 
 Whom love led deathward through disastrous things 
 He pointed as they passed, until my mind 
 Was wildered in this heavy pass to find 
 Ladies so many, and cavaliers and kings 
 Fallen, and pityi...Read more of this...

by Marvell, Andrew
...hat always ready hung, 
And so, proceeding in his motion warm, 
The army soon raised, he doth as soon disarm. 
True Trojan! While this town can girls afford, 
And long as cider lasts in Herford, 
The girls shall always kiss thee, though grown old, 
And in eternal healths thy name be trolled. 

Meanwhile the certain news of peace arrives 
At court, and so reprieves their guilty lives. 
Hyde orders Turner that he should come late, 
Lest some new Tomkins spring a fre...Read more of this...



by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...t not thee; I meant riot her
Whom all the pines of Ida shook to see
Slide from that quiet heaven of hers, and tempt
The Trojan, while his neatherds were abroad
Nor her that o'er her wounded hunter wept
Her deity false in human-amorous tears; 
Nor whom her beardless apple-arbiter
Decided fairest. Rather, O ye Gods,
Poet-like, as the great Sicilian called
Calliope to grace his golden verse -- 
Ay, and this Kypris also -- did I take
That popular name of thine to shadow forth...Read more of this...

by Trumbull, John
...in'd they not an equal fame in
The arts of secrecy and scheming;
In stratagem show'd wondrous force,
And modernized the Trojan horse,
Play'd o'er again the tricks Ulyssean,
In their famed Salem expedition?
For as that horse, the poets tell ye,
Bore Grecian armies in its belly,
Till their full reckoning run, with joy
Shrewd Sinon midwived them in Troy:
So in one ship was Leslie bold
Cramm'd with three hundred men in hold,
Equipp'd for enterprize and sail,
Like Jonas stow'd in ...Read more of this...

by Trumbull, John
...nsions;
Or sends Commiss'ners with credentials
Of promises and penitentials.
As, for his fare o'er Styx of old,
The Trojan stole the bough of gold,
And least grim Cerb'rus should make head,
Stuff'd both his fobs with ginger-bread:
Behold, at Britain's utmost shifts,
Comes Johnstone loaded with like gifts,
To venture through the whiggish tribe,
To cuddle, wheedle, coax and bribe:
And call, to aid his desp'rate mission,
His petticoated politician,
While Venus, join'd to act...Read more of this...

by Brautigan, Richard
...out fishing in Amer-

ica peace inducements, all following the Communist world

conquest line: the Gandhian nonviolence Trojan horse.

 When these young, hard-core brainwashed members of

the Communist conspiracy reached the "Panhandle, " the

emigre Oklahoma Communist sector of San Francisco, thou-

sands of other Communists were waiting for them. These

were Communists who couldn't walk very far. They barely

had enough strength to make it downtown.

 Thousa...Read more of this...

by St Vincent Millay, Edna
...Women have loved before as I love now;
At least, in lively chronicles of the past—
Of Irish waters by a Cornish prow
Or Trojan waters by a Spartan mast
Much to their cost invaded—here and there,
Hunting the amorous line, skimming the rest,
I find some woman bearing as I bear
Love like a burning city in the breast.
I think however that of all alive
I only in such utter, ancient way
Do suffer love; in me alone survive
The unregenerate passions of a day
When treacherous quee...Read more of this...

by Dyke, Henry Van
...s a light on the sea,
and a star in the story of man. 

When Homer sang of the galleys of Greece
that conquered the Trojan shore,
And Solomon lauded the barks of Tyre that
brought great wealth to his door, 
'Twas little they knew, those ancient men,
what would come of the sail and the oar. 

The Greek ships rescued the West from the East,
when they harried the Persians home; 
And the Roman ships were the wings of strength
that bore up the empire, Rome;
And the ships o...Read more of this...

by Pope, Alexander
...t
Her parting steps; if to the fane she went,
Where late the mourning matrons made resort,
Or sought her sisters in the Trojan court.
"Not to the court" replied th' attendant train,
"Nor, mixed with matrons, to Minerva's fane;
To Ilion's steepy tow'r she bent her way,
To mark the fortunes of the doubtful day.
Troy fled, she heard, before the Grecian sword;
She heard, and trembled for her absent lord.
Distracted with surprise, she seem'd to fly,
Fear on her cheek a...Read more of this...

by Pope, Alexander
...on's Ears.
In vain Thalestris with Reproach assails,
For who can move when fair Belinda fails?
Not half to fixt the Trojan cou'd remain,
While Anna begg'd and Dido rag'd in vain.
Then grave Clarissa graceful wav'd her Fan;
Silence ensu'd, and thus the Nymph began.

Say, why are Beauties prais'd and honour'd most,
The wise Man's Passion, and the vain Man's Toast?
Why deck'd with all that Land and Sea afford,
Why Angels call'd, and Angel-like ador'd?
Why round our C...Read more of this...

by Pope, Alexander
...ears.
In vain Thalestris with reproach assails,
For who can move when fair Belinda fails?
Not half so fix'd the Trojan could remain,
While Anna begg'd and Dido rag'd in vain.
Then grave Clarissa graceful wav'd her fan;
Silence ensu'd, and thus the nymph began.
"Say, why are beauties prais'd and honour'd most,
The wise man's passion, and the vain man's toast?
Why deck'd with all that land and sea afford,
Why angels call'd, and angel-like ador'd?
Why rou...Read more of this...

by Petrarch, Francesco
...at shook the Roman walls;Achilles, famed in Homer's lasting lay,The Trojan pair that kept their foes at bay;Susa's proud rulers, a distinguish'd pair,And he that pour'd the living storm of warOn the fallen thrones of Asia, till the main,With awful voice, repell'd the conquering train.Another chief...Read more of this...

by Laurence Dunbar, Paul
...'Twas the apple that in Eden
Caused our father's primal fall;
And the Trojan War, remember—
'Twas an apple caused it all.
So for weeks I've hesitated,
You can guess the reason why,
For I want to tell my darling
She's the apple of my eye.
...Read more of this...

by Laurence Dunbar, Paul
...'Twas the apple that in Eden 
Caused our father's primal fall; 
And the Trojan War, remember -- 
'Twas an apple caused it all. 
So for weeks I've hesitated, 
You can guess the reason why, 
For I want to tell my darling 
She's the apple of my eye....Read more of this...

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