Theme · 47 poems
War Poems
Poppies, soldiers, and the poems that carry remembrance — read at memorials every November.
LengthForm
In Flanders Fields
John McCrae · 1915
In Flanders fields the poppies blowBetween the crosses, row on row,That mark our place; and in the sky
15 lines · rondeau
The Second Coming
W. B. Yeats · 1920
Turning and turning in the widening gyreThe falcon cannot hear the falconer;Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
22 lines · lyric
Dulce et Decorum Est
Wilfred Owen · 1920
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
28 lines · lyric
The Charge of the Light Brigade
Alfred, Lord Tennyson · 1854
Half a league, half a league,Half a league onward,All in the valley of Death
55 lines · narrative
Paul Revere's Ride
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow · 1860
Listen my children and you shall hearOf the midnight ride of Paul Revere,On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;
130 lines · narrative
What General has a Good Army
Walt Whitman
WHAT General has a good army in himself, has a good army;He happy in himself, or she happy in herself, is happy,But I tell you you cannot be happy by others, any more than you can beget or conceive a
5 lines · lyric
Bless God, he went as soldiers
Emily Dickinson
Bless God, he went as soldiers,His musket on his breast —Grant God, he charge the bravest
8 lines · lyric
Stanza From a Translation of the Marseillaise Hymn
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Tremble, Kings despised of man!Ye traitors to your Country,Tremble! Your parricidal plan
9 lines · lyric
Weave in, Weave in, My Hardy Life
Walt Whitman
WEAVE in! weave in, my hardy life!Weave yet a soldier strong and full, for great campaigns to come;Weave in red blood! weave sinews in, like ropes! the senses, sight weave in!
11 lines · lyric
From Paumanok Starting
Walt Whitman
FROM Paumanock starting, I fly like a bird,Around and around to soar, to sing the idea of all;To the north betaking myself, to sing there arctic songs,
12 lines · lyric
"There Will Come Soft Rains"
Sara Teasdale · 1918
There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;And frogs in the pools singing at night,
12 lines · lyric
Sonnet: England in 1819
Percy Bysshe Shelley
An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying king, —Princes, the dregs of their dull race, who flowThrough public scorn, — mud from a muddy spring, —
14 lines · lyric
The Soldier
Rupert Brooke · 1914
If I should die, think only this of me:That there's some corner of a foreign fieldThat is for ever England. There shall be
14 lines · sonnet
Sonnet 16: But wherefore do not you a mightier way
William Shakespeare
But wherefore do not you a mightier wayMake war upon this bloody tyrant, Time?And fortify your self in your decay
14 lines · sonnet
Sonnet 35: No more be griev'd at that which thou hast done
William Shakespeare
No more be griev'd at that which thou hast done:Roses have thorns, and silver fountains mud:Clouds and eclipses stain both moon and sun,
14 lines · sonnet
Sonnet 46: Mine eye and heart are at a mortal war
William Shakespeare
Mine eye and heart are at a mortal war,How to divide the conquest of thy sight;Mine eye my heart thy picture's sight would bar,
14 lines · sonnet
Sonnet 55: Not marble, nor the gilded monuments
William Shakespeare
Not marble, nor the gilded monumentsOf princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme;But you shall shine more bright in these contents
14 lines · sonnet
Sonnet 8: Music to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly?
William Shakespeare
Music to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly?Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy:Why lov'st thou that which thou receiv'st not gladly,
14 lines · sonnet
O Sun of Real Peace
Walt Whitman
O SUN of real peace! O hastening light!O free and extatic! O what I here, preparing, warble for!O the sun of the world will ascend, dazzling, and take his height—and you too, O my
15 lines · lyric
Spain 1873–’74
Walt Whitman
OUT of the murk of heaviest clouds,Out of the feudal wrecks, and heap’d-up skeletons of kings,Out of that old entire European debris—the shatter’d mummeries,
15 lines · lyric
Home They Brought Her Warrior Dead
Alfred, Lord Tennyson · 1847
Home they brought her warrior dead:She nor swooned, nor uttered cry:All her maidens, watching, said,
16 lines · lyric
Hymn To Aristogeiton And Harmodius
Edgar Allan Poe
Wreathed in myrtle, my sword I'll conceal, Like those champions devoted and brave,When they plunged in the tyrant their steel,
16 lines · lyric
The Irishman's Song
Percy Bysshe Shelley
The stars may dissolve, and the fountain of lightMay sink into ne'er ending chaos and night,Our mansions must fall, and earth vanish away,
16 lines · lyric
I hae a Wife o’ my Ain
Robert Burns
I HAE a wife of my ain, I’ll partake wi’ naebody;I’ll take Cuckold frae nane,
16 lines · lyric
I Murder hate
Robert Burns
I MURDER hate by flood or field, Tho’ glory’s name may screen us;In wars at home I’ll spend my blood—
16 lines · lyric
There’ll never be Peace till Jamie comes hame
Robert Burns
BY yon Castle wa’, at the close of the day,I heard a man sing, tho’ his head it was grey:And as he was singing, the tears doon came,—
16 lines · lyric
An Irish Airman Foresees His Death
W. B. Yeats · 1919
I know that I shall meet my fateSomewhere among the clouds above;Those that I fight I do not hate
16 lines · lyric
Adieu to a Soldier
Walt Whitman
ADIEU, O soldier!You of the rude campaigning, (which we shared,)The rapid march, the life of the camp,
17 lines · lyric
Italian Music in Dakota
Walt Whitman
THROUGH the soft evening air enwrinding all,Rocks, woods, fort, cannon, pacing sentries, endless wilds,In dulcet streams, in flutes’ and cornets’ notes,
17 lines · lyric
Ye Jacobites by Name
Robert Burns
YE Jacobites by name, give an ear, give an ear,Ye Jacobites by name, give an ear, Ye Jacobites by name,
20 lines · lyric
The Man He Killed
Thomas Hardy · 1902
'Had he and I but metBy some old ancient inn,We should have sat us down to wet
20 lines · lyric
Similes for Two Political Characters of 1819
Percy Bysshe Shelley
As from an ancestral oakTwo empty ravens sound their clarion,Yell by yell, and croak by croak,
21 lines · lyric
War Is Kind
Stephen Crane · 1899
Do not weep, maiden, for war is kind.Because the lover threw wild hands toward the skyAnd the affrighted steed ran on alone,
26 lines · free verse
Ode, Sacred to the Memory of Mrs. Oswald of Auchencruive
Robert Burns
DWELLER in yon dungeon dark, Hangman of creation! mark, Who in widow-weeds appears,
31 lines · lyric
Poem of Remembrance for a Girl or a Boy
Walt Whitman
YOU just maturing youth! You male or female!Remember the organic compact of These States,Remember the pledge of the Old Thirteen thenceforward to the rights, life, liberty,
33 lines · lyric
Men Are Heaven's Piers
Robert Louis Stevenson
MEN are Heaven's piers; they evermoreUnwearying bear the skyey floor;Man's theatre they bear with ease,
34 lines · lyric
The Dumb Soldier
Robert Louis Stevenson
When the grass was closely mown,Walking on the lawn alone,In the turf a hole I found
36 lines · lyric
If This Were Faith
Robert Louis Stevenson
God, if this were enough,That I see things bare to the buffAnd up to the buttocks in mire;
38 lines · lyric
The Revenge - A Ballad of the Fleet
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
At Flores in the Azores Sir Richard Grenville lay,And a pinnace, like a fluttered bird, came flying from far away:'Spanish ships of war at sea! we have sighted'
40 lines · lyric
Ashes of Soldiers
Walt Whitman
ASHES of soldiers!As I muse, retrospective, murmuring a chant in thought,Lo! the war resumes—again to my sense your shapes,
43 lines · lyric
The Arsenal at Springfield
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
This is the Arsenal. From floor to ceiling,Like a huge organ, rise the burnished arms;But front their silent pipes no anthem pealing
48 lines · lyric
Nature’s Law: A Poem
Robert Burns
LET other heroes boast their scars, The marks of sturt and strife:And other poets sing of wars,
48 lines · lyric
A Boston Ballad, 1854
Walt Whitman
TO get betimes in Boston town, I rose this morning early;Here’s a good place at the corner—I must stand and see the show.Clear the way there, Jonathan!
49 lines · lyric
The Soldier’s Return: A Ballad
Robert Burns
WHEN wild war’s deadly blast was blawn, And gentle peace returning,Wi’ mony a sweet babe fatherless,
64 lines · lyric
Ballad on Mr. Heron’s Election—No. 3
Robert Burns
’TWAS in the seventeen hunder year O’ grace, and ninety-five,That year I was the wae’est man
68 lines · lyric
Ballad on the American War
Robert Burns
WHEN Guilford good our pilot stood An’ did our hellim thraw, man,Ae night, at tea, began a plea,
72 lines · lyric
The Bour-Tree Den
Robert Louis Stevenson
CLINKUM-CLANK in the rain they ride,Down by the braes and the grey sea-side;Clinkum-clank by stane and cairn,
96 lines · lyric