Famous Warrior Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Warrior poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous warrior poems. These examples illustrate what a famous warrior poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Francesco Petrarch
SONNET XIX. Mille fiate, o dolce mia guerrera. HIS HEART, REJECTED BY LAURA, WILL PERISH, UNLESS SHE RELENT. A thousand times, sweet warrior, have I tried,Proffering my heart to thee, some peace to gainFrom those bright eyes, but still, alas! in vain,To such low level stoops not thy chaste pride.If others...Read more of this...
by
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
In his lodge beside a river,
Close beside a frozen river,
Sat an old man, sad and lonely.
White his hair was as a snow-drift;
Dull and low his fire was burning,
And the old man shook and trembled,
Folded in his Waubewyon,
In his tattered white-skin-wrapper,
Hearing nothing but the tempest
As it roared along the forest,
Seeing nothing but the snow-storm,
As it whirled and hissed and drifted.
All...Read more of this...
by
Friedrich von Schiller
Now hearken, ye who take delight
In boasting of your worth!
To many a man, to many a knight,
Beloved in peace and brave in fight,
The Swabian land gives birth.
Of Charles and Edward, Louis, Guy,
And Frederick, ye may boast;
Charles, Edward, Louis, Frederick, Guy--
None with Sir Eberhard can vie--
Himself a mighty host!
And then young Ulerick, his son,
Ha! how he loved the fray!
Young Ulerick,...Read more of this...
by
Lucy Maud Montgomery
My Claudia, it is long since we have met,
So kissed, so held each other heart to heart!
I thought to greet thee as a conqueror comes,
Bearing the trophies of his prowess home,
But Jove hath willed it should be otherwise
Jove, say I? Nay, some mightier stranger-god
Who thus hath laid his heavy hand on me,
No victor,...Read more of this...
by
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
On sunny slope and beechen swell,
The shadowed light of evening fell;
And, where the maple's leaf was brown,
With soft and silent lapse came down,
The glory, that the wood receives,
At sunset, in its golden leaves.
Far upward in the mellow light
Rose the blue hills. One cloud of white,
Around a far uplifted cone,
In the warm blush of evening shone;
An image of the silver...Read more of this...
by
Paul Laurence Dunbar
'T was in the radiant summer weather,
When God looked, smiling, from the sky;
And we went wand'ring much together
By wood and lane, Ione and I,
Attracted by the subtle tie
Of common thoughts and common tastes,
Of eyes whose vision saw the same,
And freely granted beauty's claim
Where others found but worthless wastes.
We paused to hear the far bells ringing
Across the distance, sweet and clear.
We...Read more of this...
by
Aleister Crowley
[Dedicated to General J.C.F. Fuller]
Velvet soft the night-star glowed
Over the untrodden road,
Through the giant glades of yew
Where its ray fell light as dew
Lighting up the shimmering veil
Maiden pure and aery frail
That the spiders wove to hide
Blushes of the sylvan bride
Earth, that trembled with delight
At the male caress of Night.
Velvet...Read more of this...
by
Thomas Chatterton
On Tiber's banks, Tiber, whose waters glide
In slow meanders down to Gaigra's side;
And circling all the horrid mountain round,
Rushes impetuous to the deep profound;
Rolls o'er the ragged rocks with hideous yell;
Collects its waves beneath the earth's vast shell;
There for a while in loud confusion hurl'd,
It crumbles mountains down and shakes the world....Read more of this...
by
Alfred Lord Tennyson
Home they brought her warrior dead:
She nor swooned, nor uttered cry:
All her maidens, watching, said,
‘She must weep or she will die.’
Then they praised him, soft and low,
Called him worthy to be loved,
Truest friend and noblest foe;
Yet she neither spoke nor moved.
Stole a maiden from her place,
Lightly to the warrior stepped,...Read more of this...
by
Sharmagne Leland-St John
You never saw the spring my love
Or the red tailed hawk circling high above
On feathered wings my love
You only knew the snow
You never saw the prairie grasses bend and blow
And undulate like the shimmering indigo sea
You never saw me
Your eyes were closed so tight
They say you put up quite a fight
Somehow your life was over before it had begun...Read more of this...
by
Thomas Moore
The Minstrel-Boy to the war is gone,
In the ranks of death you'll find him;
His father's sword he has girded on,
And his wild harp slung behind him.
"Land of song!" said the warrior-bard,
"Though all the world betrays thee,
One sword, at least, thy rights shall guard,
One faithful harp shall praise thee!"
The Minstrel fell! --...Read more of this...
by
Jerome Rothenberg
I kill for pleasure
not for gain.
A man much more
than you my hands
find knives
& flash them.
I am guilty
in my works
while in their eyes
I seek redemption.
I find myself
forgotten
angry at the thought
of bread. I will not
eat my poem(A. Artaud)
much less be raped
by it. I have a home
but sit with others
shirtless, waiting
for the moon to rise.
I am a warrior
grown old.
The number on my...Read more of this...
by
John McCrae
He wrought in poverty, the dull grey days,
But with the night his little lamp-lit room
Was bright with battle flame, or through a haze
Of smoke that stung his eyes he heard the boom
Of Bluecher's guns; he shared Almeida's scars,
And from the close-packed deck, about to die,
Looked up and saw the "Birkenhead"'s tall spars
Weave wavering lines across the Southern sky:
Or in...Read more of this...
by
Muhammad Ali
For every struggle that Joe survived,
For every dispute he endured, to rise,
Joe will go down in history
as a model for champions to come.
While Frazier was a man of few words,
Ali was a world of mouth,
but he found his place in history.
Now his heart can express him well.
Joe Frazier was a silent warrior,
whom Ali silently admired.
One could not rise without the...Read more of this...
by
Ezra Pound
I do not choose to dream; there cometh on me
Some strange old lust for deeds.
As to the nerveless hand of some old warrior
The sword-hilt or the war-worn wonted helmet
Brings momentary life and long-fled cunning,
So to my soul grown old -
Grown old with many a jousting, many a foray,
Grown old with namy a hither-coming and hence-going -
Till...Read more of this...
by
Robert Southey
This mound in some remote and dateless day
Rear'd o'er a Chieftain of the Age of Hills,
May here detain thee Traveller! from thy road
Not idly lingering. In his narrow house
Some Warrior sleeps below: his gallant deeds
Haply at many a solemn festival
The Bard has harp'd, but perish'd is the song
Of praise, as o'er these bleak and barren downs
The wind that passes...Read more of this...
by
Andrew Barton Paterson
Wargeilah town is very small,
There's no cathedral nor a club,
In fact the township, all in all,
Is just one unpretentious pub;
And there, from all the stations round,
The local sportsmen can be found.
The sportsmen of Wargeilah-side
Are very few but very fit;
There's scarcely any sport been tried
But they can hold their own at...Read more of this...
by
Robert Pinsky
Dire one and desired one,
Savior, sentencer--
In an old allegory you would carry
A chained alphabet of tokens:
Ankh Badge Cross.
Dragon,
Engraved figure guarding a hallowed intaglio,
Jasper kinema of legendary Mind,
Naked omphalos pierced
By quills of rhyme or sense, torah-like: unborn
Vein of will, xenophile
Yearning out of Zero.
Untrusting I court you. Wavering
I seek your face, I read
That Crusoe's knife
Reeked of you, that to defile you
The...Read more of this...
by
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
You shall hear how Pau-Puk-Keewis,
How the handsome Yenadizze
Danced at Hiawatha's wedding;
How the gentle Chibiabos,
He the sweetest of musicians,
Sang his songs of love and longing;
How Iagoo, the great boaster,
He the marvellous story-teller,
Told his tales of strange adventure,
That the feast might be more joyous,
That the time might pass more gayly,
And...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
My only medals are the scars
I've won in weary, peacetime wars,
A-fighting for my little brood,
To win them shelter, shoon and food;
But most of all to give them faith
In God's good mercy unto death.
My sons have medals gleaming bright,
Proud trophies won in foreign fight;
But though their crosses bravely shine,
My boys can show no wounds like mine -
Grim gashes dolorously healed,
And...Read more of this...
by
Thomas Gray
Pindaric Ode
"Ruin seize thee, ruthless King!
Confusion on thy banners wait!
Tho' fanned by Conquest's crimson wing,
They mock the air with idle state.
Helm, nor hauberk's twisted mail,
Nor e'en thy virtues, Tyrant, shall avail
To save thy secret soul from nightly fears,
From Cambria's curse, from Cambria's tears!"
Such were the sounds that o'er the crested pride
Of the first Edward scattered wild dismay,
As down the...Read more of this...
by
G K Chesterton
You whom the kings saluted; who refused not
The one great pleasure of ignoble days,
Fame without name and glory without gossip,
Whom no biographer befouls with praise.
Who said of you "Defeated"? In the darkness
The dug-out where the limelight never comes,
Nor the big drum of Barnum's show can shatter
That vibrant stillness after all the drums.
Though the time comes when every Yankee circus
Can...Read more of this...
by
Pablo Neruda
The artichoke
With a tender heart
Dressed up like a warrior,
Standing at attention, it built
A small helmet
Under its scales
It remained
Unshakeable,
By its side
The crazy vegetables
Uncurled
Their tendrills and leaf-crowns,
Throbbing bulbs,
In the sub-soil
The carrot
With its red mustaches
Was sleeping,
The grapevine
Hung out to dry its branches
Through which...Read more of this...
by
Alfred Lord Tennyson
Home they brought her warrior dead:
She nor swoon'd nor utter'd cry:
All her maidens, watching, said,
"She must weep or she will die."
Then they praised him, soft and low,
Call'd him worthy to be loved,
Truest friend and noblest foe;
Yet she neither spoke nor moved.
Stole a maiden from her place,
Lightly to the warrior stepped,
Took the face-cloth from the face;
Yet she neither moved nor...Read more of this...
by
Henry Van Dyke
Heart of France for a hundred years,
Passionate, sensitive, proud, and strong,
Quick to throb with her hopes and fears,
Fierce to flame with her sense of wrong!
You, who hailed with a morning song
Dream-light gilding a throne of old:
You, who turned when the dream grew cold,
Singing still, to the light that shone
Pure from Liberty's ancient throne,
Over the human throng!
You, who dared in...Read more of this...
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