Theme · 56 poems

War Poems

Poppies, soldiers, and the poems that carry remembrance — the verse that argued about war while it was being fought, and the lines still read at memorials.

War poetry in English splits cleanly in 1914. Before it, the tradition mostly wrote about courage from a distance: Tennyson's 'The Charge of the Light Brigade' turns a catastrophic order into six hundred men riding anyway, and admires them for it. Whitman, closer to the fighting in the American Civil War, had already started to complicate the picture — 'O Captain! My Captain!' is a victory poem that cannot get past the body on the deck.

Then the soldiers themselves published. Wilfred Owen's 'Dulce et Decorum Est' exists specifically to demolish the phrase it names — Horace's "it is sweet and fitting to die for one's country" — and it does so by making the reader watch a gas death in detail. John McCrae's 'In Flanders Fields', written in 1915 by a serving medical officer, went the other way and became the reason poppies mean what they mean. Both are read every November, which tells you the argument was never settled.

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

"It was wrong to do this," said the angel

Stephen Crane

"It was wrong to do this," said the angel."You should live like a flower,Holding malice like a puppy,

10 lines · lyric

Supposing that I should have the courage

Stephen Crane

Supposing that I should have the courageTo let a red sword of virtuePlunge into my heart,

10 lines · lyric

Once I saw mountains angry

Stephen Crane

Once I saw mountains angry,And ranged in battle-front.Against them stood a little man;

11 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 16 - And yet, because thou overcomest so

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

And yet, because thou overcomest so,Because thou art more noble and like a king,Thou canst prevail against my fears and fling

14 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

The Wandering Jew's Soliloquy

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Is it the Eternal Triune, is it HeWho dares arrest the wheels of destinyAnd plunge me in the lowest Hell of Hells?

29 lines · lyric

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

An Ode, Written October, 1819, Before the Spaniards Had Recovered Their Liberty

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Arise, arise, arise!There is blood on the earth that denies ye bread;Be your wounds like eyes

35 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

Incident of the French Camp

Robert Browning

You know, we French stormed Ratisbon: A mile or so awayOn a little mound, Napoleon

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

The Fatal Sisters

Thomas Gray

Now the storm begins to lower,(Haste, the loom of Hell prepares!)Iron-sleet of arrowy shower

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

Ballad on Mr. Heron’s Election—No. 2

Robert Burns

FY, let us a’ to Kirkcudbright, For there will be bickerin’ there;For Murray’s light horse are to muster,

96 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

Common questions

What is the most famous war poem?

'In Flanders Fields' by John McCrae (1915) is the most recited — it gave remembrance its poppy. Wilfred Owen's 'Dulce et Decorum Est' is the most influential, and argues the opposite case.

What war poem is read on Remembrance Day?

'In Flanders Fields' is the standard reading at services. For a shorter piece, Christina Rossetti's 'Remember' and Stevenson's 'Requiem' are often used at graveside and memorial readings.