Famous Wounded Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Wounded poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous wounded poems. These examples illustrate what a famous wounded poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Victor Hugo
("Il neigeait.")
{Bk. V. xiii., Nov. 25-30, 1852.}
It snowed. A defeat was our conquest red!
For once the eagle was hanging its head.
Sad days! the Emperor turned slowly his back
On smoking Moscow, blent orange and black.
The winter burst, avalanche-like, to reign
Over the endless blanched sheet of...Read more of this...
by
Adela Florence Cory Nicolson
This man has taken my Husband's life
And laid my Brethren low,
No sister indeed, were I, no wife,
To pardon and let him go.
Yet why does he look so young and slim
As he weak and wounded lies?
...Read more of this...
by
Francesco Petrarch
CANZONE XV. In quella parte dov' Amor mi sprona. HE FINDS HER IMAGE EVERYWHERE. When Love, fond Love, commands the strain,The coyest muse must sure obey;Love bids my wounded breast complain,And whispers the melodious lay:Yet when such griefs restrain the muse's wing,How shall she dare to soar, or how attempt...Read more of this...
by
Edmund Spenser
Calidore sees the Graces daunce,
To Colins melody:
The whiles his Pastorell is led,
[I]nto captiuity.
W Ho now does follow the foule Blatant Beast,
Whilest Calidore does follow that faire Mayd,
Vnmyndfull of his vow and high beheast,
Which by the Faery Queene was on him layd,
That he should neuer leaue, nor be delayd
From chacing him, till he had it attchieued?
But now entrapt of loue,...Read more of this...
by
Victor Hugo
{Bought with the proceeds of Readings of "Les Châtiments" during
the Siege of Paris.}
{1872.}
Thou deadly crater, moulded by my muse,
Cast thou thy bronze into my bowed and wounded heart,
And let my soul its vengeance to thy bronze impart!
...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
Me and Ed and a stretcher
Out on the nootral ground.
(If there's one dead corpse, I'll betcher
There's a 'undred smellin' around.)
Me and Eddie O'Brian,
Both of the R. A. M. C.
"It'as a 'ell of a night
For a soul to take flight,"
As Eddie remarks to me.
Me and Ed crawlin' 'omeward,
Thinkin' our job is done,
When sudden and clear,
Wot...Read more of this...
by
Thomas Hardy
I
"O Time, whence comes the Mother's moody look amid her labours,
As of one who all unwittingly has wounded where she loves?
Why weaves she not her world-webs to according lutes and tabors,
With nevermore this too remorseful air upon her face,
As of angel fallen from grace?"
II
- "Her look is but her...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
(The Wounded Canadian Speaks)
My leg? It's off at the knee.
Do I miss it? Well, some. You see
I've had it since I was born;
And lately a devilish corn.
(I rather chuckle with glee
To think how I've fooled that corn.)
But I'll hobble around all right.
It isn't that, it's my face.
Oh I know I'm a hideous sight,
Hardly a...Read more of this...
by
Claude McKay
I
All night, through the eternity of night,
Pain was my potion though I could not feel.
Deep in my humbled heart you ground your heel,
Till I was reft of even my inner light,
Till reason from my mind had taken flight,
And all my world went whirling in a reel.
And all my swarthy strength turned cold...Read more of this...
by
Siegfried Sassoon
He seemed so certain ‘all was going well’,
As he discussed the glorious time he’d had
While visiting the trenches.
‘One can tell
You’ve gathered big impressions!’ grinned the lad
Who’d been severely wounded in the back
In some wiped-out impossible Attack.
‘Impressions? Yes, most vivid! I am writing
A little book called Europe on the Rack,
Based on notes made...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
Is it not strange? A year ago to-day,
With scarce a thought beyond the hum-drum round,
I did my decent job and earned my pay;
Was averagely happy, I'll be bound.
Ay, in my little groove I was content,
Seeing my life run smoothly to the end,
With prosy days in stolid labour spent,
And jolly nights, a pipe, a glass, a...Read more of this...
by
Mary Darby Robinson
I.
Ah! wherefore by the Church-yard side,
Poor little LORN ONE, dost thou stray?
Thy wavy locks but thinly hide
The tears that dim thy blue-eye's ray;
And wherefore dost thou sigh, and moan,
And weep, that thou art left alone?
II.
Thou art not left alone, poor boy,
The Trav'ller stops to hear thy tale;
No heart, so hard, would thee annoy!
For tho' thy mother's cheek...Read more of this...
by
Rg Gregory
(from a painting by hugo simberg)
those who bear the wounded angel
are they honoured or destroyed
far beyond their comprehension
are the warfares of the void
angels have a sheen to lift them
well above the bloody battles
human beings give their hurts to
divines don't need such tittle-tattles
yet this angel has been wounded
here on earth its presence is
two young boys (the stretcher bearers)
are flung immensely...Read more of this...
by
Victor Hugo
("Vous qui pleurez, venez à ce Dieu.")
{Bk. III. iv., March, 1842.}
Ye weepers, the Mourner o'er mourners behold!
Ye wounded, come hither—the Healer enfold!
Ye gloomy ones, brighten 'neath smiles quelling care—
Or pass—for this Comfort is found ev'rywhere.
{Footnote 1: Music by Gounod.}
...Read more of this...
by
Robert Herrick
Cupid as he lay among
Roses, by a Bee was stung.
Whereupon in anger flying
To his Mother, said thus crying;
Help! O help! your Boy's a dying.
And why, my pretty Lad, said she?
Then blubbering, replyed he,
A winged Snake has bitten me,
Which Country people call a Bee.
At which she smil'd; then with her hairs
And kisses drying up his tears:
Alas! said she, my Wag!...Read more of this...
by
Marilyn Hacker
for Audre Lorde and Sonny Wainwright
Twice in my quickly disappearing forties
someone called while someone I loved and I were
making love to tell me another woman had died of cancer.
Seven years apart, and two different lovers:
underneath the numbers, how lives are braided,
how those women's death and lives, lived and died, were
interleaved also.
Does lip touch on lip a memento mori?
Does the...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
The cow-moose comes to water, and the beaver's overbold,
The net is in the eddy of the stream;
The teepee stars the vivid sward with russet, red and gold,
And in the velvet gloom the fire's a-gleam.
The night is ripe with quiet, rich with incense of the pine;
From sanctuary lake I hear the loon;
The peaks are bright against the blue, and drenched...Read more of this...
by
Robert Burns
INHUMAN man! curse on thy barb’rous art,
And blasted be thy murder-aiming eye;
May never pity soothe thee with a sigh,
Nor ever pleasure glad thy cruel heart!
Go live, poor wand’rer of the wood and field!
The bitter little that of life remains:
No more the thickening brakes and verdant plains
To thee a home, or food, or pastime yield.
Seek, mangled...Read more of this...
by
Russell Edson
A huge shoe mounts up from the horizon,
squealing and grinding forward on small wheels,
even as a man sitting to breakfast on his veranda
is suddenly engulfed in a great shadow, almost
the size of the night . . .
He looks up and sees a huge shoe
ponderously mounting out of the earth.
Up in...Read more of this...
by
Siegfried Sassoon
I was near the King that day. I saw him snatch
And briskly scan the G.H.Q. dispatch.
Thick-voiced, he read it out. (His face was grave.)
‘This officer advanced with the first wave,
‘And when our first objective had been gained,
‘(Though wounded twice), reorganized the line:
‘The spirit of the troops was by his fine
‘Example most effectively sustained.’...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
A Wounded Deer -- leaps highest --
I've heard the Hunter tell --
'Tis but the Ecstasy of death --
And then the Brake is still!
The Smitten Rock that gushes!
The trampled Steel that springs!
A Cheek is always redder
Just where the Hectic stings!
Mirth is the Mail of Anguish
In which it Cautious Arm,
Lest anybody spy the blood
And "you're hurt" exclaim!...Read more of this...
by
Henry Lawson
Do you think, you slaves of a thousand years to poverty, wealth and pride,
You can crush the spirit that has been free in a land that's new and wide?
When you've scattered the last of the farmer bands, and the war for a while is over,
You will hold the land – ay, you'll hold the land –...Read more of this...
by
Gabriela Mistral
Let us go now into the forest.
Trees will pass by your face,
and I will stop and offer you to them,
but they cannot bend down.
The night watches over its creatures,
except for the pine trees that never change:
the old wounded springs that spring
blessed gum, eternal afternoons.
If they could, the trees would lift you
and carry you from valley to valley,
and you would...Read more of this...
by
William Topaz McGonagall
'Twas on the 22nd of March, in the year 1885,
That the Arabs rushed like a mountain torrent in full drive,
And quickly attacked General M'Neill's transport-zereba,
But in a short time they were forced to withdraw.
And in the suddenness of surprise the men were carried away,
Also camels, mules, and horses were thrown into wild disarray,
By thousands of the Arabs that...Read more of this...
by
Katherine Mansfield
In the wide bed
Under the freen embroidered quilt
With flowers and leaves always in soft motion
She is like a wounded bird resting on a pool.
The hunter threw his dart
And hit her breast,--
Hit her but did not kill.
"O my wings, lift me--lift me!
I am not dreadfully hurt!"
Down she dropped and was still.
Kind people come to the edge of the pool with...Read more of this...
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