Famous Watchmen Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Watchmen poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous watchmen poems. These examples illustrate what a famous watchmen poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Swift, Jonathan
...Hundred Stinks,
Belated, seems on watch to lie,
And snap some Cull passing by;
Or, struck with Fear, her Fancy runs
On Watchmen, Constables and Duns,
From whom she meets with frequent Rubs;
But, never from Religious Clubs;
Whose Favour she is sure to find,
Because she pays them all in Kind.
CORINNA wakes. A dreadful Sight!
Behold the Ruins of the Night!
A wicked Rat her Plaster stole,
Half eat, and dragged it to his Hole.
The Crystal Eye, alas, was miss'd;
And Pu...Read more of this...
by
Wilde, Oscar
...Though childless, and with thorn-crowned head,
Up the steep road must England go,
Yet when this fiery web is spun,
Her watchmen shall descry from far
The young Republic like a sun
Rise from these crimson seas of war....Read more of this...
by
Gibran, Kahlil
...s,
And with her cries came the sound of hoofs, and the beating of wings and the roaring of lions."
At night the watchmen of the city say, "Beauty shall rise with the dawn from the east."
And at noontide the toilers and the wayfarers say, "we have seen her leaning over the earth from the windows of the sunset."
In winter say the snow-bound, "She shall come with the spring leaping upon the hills."
And in the summer heat the reapers say, "We have seen h...Read more of this...
by
Wilde, Oscar
...ers in their venery
Forgat a little while their stolen sweets,
Deeming they heard dread Dian's bitter cry;
And the grim watchmen on their lofty seats
Ran to their shields in haste precipitate,
Or strained black-bearded throats across the dusky parapet.
For round the temple rolled the clang of arms,
And the twelve Gods leapt up in marble fear,
And the air quaked with dissonant alarums
Till huge Poseidon shook his mighty spear,
And on the frieze the prancing horses neighed...Read more of this...
by
Blake, William
...t,
Let Gwin be humbl?d,'
They cry, `and let ten thousand lives
Pay for the tyrant's head.'
From tow'r to tow'r the watchmen cry,
`O Gwin, the son of Nore,
Arouse thyself! the nations, black
Like clouds, come rolling o'er!'
Gwin rear'd his shield, his palace shakes,
His chiefs come rushing round;
Each, like an awful thunder cloud,
With voice of solemn sound:
Like rear?d stones around a grave
They stand around the King;
Then suddenly each seiz'd his spear,
And clashing s...Read more of this...
by
Watts, Isaac
...ssed are our eyes
That see this heav'nly light
Prophets and kings desired it long,
But died without the sight.
The watchmen join their voice,
And tuneful notes employ;
Jerusalem breaks forth in songs,
And deserts learn the joy.
The Lord makes bare his arm
Through all the earth abroad;
Let every nation now behold
Their Savior and their God!...Read more of this...
by
Watts, Isaac
...ht
I seek him oft, but find him not.
Then I arise and search the street,
Till I my Lord, my Savior meet:
I ask the watchmen of the night,
"Where did you see my soul's delight?"
Sometimes I find him in my way,
Directed by a heav'nly ray;
I leap for joy to see his face,
And hold him fast in mine embrace.
[I bring him to my mother's home,
Nor does my Lord refuse to come
To Zion's sacred chambers, where
My soul first drew the vital air.
He gives me there his bleed...Read more of this...
by
Sandburg, Carl
...the midnight sign of a chile con carne place,
or a man out of the ashes of false dawn muttering “hot-dog” to the night watchmen:
Is there a spieler who has spoken the word or taken the number of night’s nothings? am I the spieler? or you?
Is there a tired head
the night has not fed and rested
and kept on its neck and shoulders?
Is there a wish
of man to woman
and woman to man
the night has not written
and signed its name under?
Does the night forget
as a woman forgets?
an...Read more of this...
by
Kipling, Rudyard
...1918
SEVEN Watchmen sitting in a tower,
Watching what had come upon mankind,
Showed the Man the Glory and the Power,
And bade him shape the Kingdom to his mind.
"All things on Earth your will shall win you."
('Twas so their council ran)
" But the Kingdom--the Kingdom is within you,"
Said the Man's own mind to the Man.
For time--and some time--
As it wa...Read more of this...
by
Sandburg, Carl
.... The sign speaks till midnight.
Darkness on the hallways. Voices echo. Silence
holds. . . Watchmen walk slow from floor to floor
and try the doors. Revolvers bulge from their hip
pockets. . . Steel safes stand in corners. Money
is stacked in them.
A young watchman leans at a window and sees the lights
of barges butting their way across a harbor, nets of
red and white lanterns in a railroad yard, and a span
of glooms splash...Read more of this...
by
Bible, The
...he broad ways I will seek him whom my soul loveth: I sought
him, but I found him not.
22:003:003 The watchmen that go about the city found me: to whom I said,
Saw ye him whom my soul loveth?
22:003:004 It was but a little that I passed from them, but I found him
whom my soul loveth: I held him, and would not let him go,
until I had brought him into my mother's house, and into the
chamber of her that conceiv...Read more of this...
by
Kipling, Rudyard
...ssuaded;
To foresee, to allay, to avert from us perils unnumbered,
To stand guard on our gates when he guessed that the watchmen had slumbered;
To win time, to turn hate, to woo folly to service and, mightily schooling
His strength to the use of his Nations, to rule as not ruling.
These were the works of our King; Earth's peace was the proof of them.
God gave him great works to fulfil, and to us the behoof of them.
We accepted his toil as our right -- none spared...Read more of this...
by
McGonagall, William Topaz
...truggling hard against the roaring flood,
To save themselves and little ones, their own. flesh and blood.
The watchmen tried to patch the breach, but it was all in vain,
Because the banks were sodden with the long prolonged rain;
And driven along by a high wind, which brought the last strain,
Which caused the water with resistless fury to spread o'er the plain.
And the torrent poured into the valley of the La Chia river,
Sweeping thousands of the people before...Read more of this...
by
Lawson, Henry
...outhern drought
The big lean bullocks go;
And camped by night where plains lie wide,
Like some old ocean's bed,
The watchmen in the starlight ride
Round fifteen hundred head.
And west of named and numbered days
The shearers walk and ride --
Jack Cornstalk and the Ne'er-do-well
And the grey-beard side by side;
They veil their eyes -- from moon and stars,
And slumber on the sand --
Sad memories steep as years go round
In Never-Never Land.
By lonely huts ...Read more of this...
by
Darwish, Mahmoud
..., my love
Be moon
In the dream of the beloved woman, be moon
[So spoke a woman
to her son at his funeral]
***
Oh watchmen! Are you not weary
Of lying in wait for the light in our salt
And of the incandescence of the rose in our wound
Are you not weary, oh watchmen?
***
A little of this absolute and blue infinity
Would be enough
To lighten the burden of these times
And to cleanse the mire of this place.
***
It is up to the soul to come down from its mou...Read more of this...
by
Sandburg, Carl
...xt year.
Hammers and shovels of work gangs sleep in shop corners
when the dark stars come on the sky and the night watchmen walk and look.
Then the hammer heads talk to the handles,
then the scoops of the shovels talk,
how the day’s work nicked and trimmed them,
how they swung and lifted all day,
how the hands of the work gangs smelled of hope.
In the night of the dark stars
when the curve of the sky is a work gang handle,
in the night on the mile long sidetrack...Read more of this...
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