# Absolutely badass old poems **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 22, 2014, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/absolutely-badass-old-poems/691382 "2014-06-22T19:31:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Oedipus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Oedipus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oedipus)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2014, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/absolutely-badass-old-poems/691382/1 "2014-06-22T19:31:38Z")
Hey guys! I’m doing a little personal project and I’m looking for some badass old poems to use. I was started on this by a Lord Byron poem and was looking for things similar to it. Lord Bryron in _The Destruction of Sennacherib_, third stanza > [@](#): > > For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast, > And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed; > And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill, > And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still! ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2014, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/absolutely-badass-old-poems/691382/2 "2014-06-22T19:36:30Z")
Ozymandias: Percy Bysshe Shelly’s version: I met a traveller from an antique land Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand, Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed: And on the pedestal these words appear: ‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’ Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away. Horace Smith’s version: In Egypt’s sandy silence, all alone, Stands a gigantic Leg, which far off throws The only shadow that the Desert knows:— “I am great OZYMANDIAS,” saith the stone, "The King of Kings; this mighty City shows “The wonders of my hand.”— The City’s gone,— Nought but the Leg remaining to disclose The site of this forgotten Babylon. We wonder,—and some Hunter may express Wonder like ours, when thro’ the wilderness Where London stood, holding the Wolf in chace, He meets some fragment huge, and stops to guess What powerful but unrecorded race Once dwelt in that annihilated place. ---
**Author:** ![Oedipus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Oedipus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oedipus)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2014, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/absolutely-badass-old-poems/691382/3 "2014-06-22T19:41:11Z")
Oh how could I forget Ozymandias? Such a great poem. I am looking for something a little more obvious though, if that makes sense. Even The Destruction of Sennacherib skirts around a little bit for what I’m wanting to use these for. Great find though! ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2014, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/absolutely-badass-old-poems/691382/4 "2014-06-22T19:42:59Z")
Well, the third verse of “The Star Spangled Banner” is badass. And where is that band who so vauntingly swore That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion, A home and a country, should leave us no more? Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps’ pollution. No refuge could save the hireling and slave From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave: And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave, O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave. ---
**Author:** ![RobDog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f07891/32.png) [@RobDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RobDog)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2014, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/absolutely-badass-old-poems/691382/5 "2014-06-22T19:45:37Z")
Tennyson - Charge of the Light Brigade I Half a league, half a league, Half a league onward, All in the valley of Death Rode the six hundred. “Forward, the Light Brigade! Charge for the guns!” he said. Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred. II “Forward, the Light Brigade!” Was there a man dismayed? Not though the soldier knew Someone had blundered. Theirs not to make reply, Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do and die. Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred. III Cannon to right of them, Cannon to left of them, Cannon in front of them Volleyed and thundered; Stormed at with shot and shell, Boldly they rode and well, Into the jaws of Death, Into the mouth of hell Rode the six hundred. etc! ---
**Author:** ![Oedipus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Oedipus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oedipus)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2014, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/absolutely-badass-old-poems/691382/6 "2014-06-22T19:51:43Z")
Does Tennyson have equal poems like that that are lesser known? ---
**Author:** ![RobDog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f07891/32.png) [@RobDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RobDog)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2014, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/absolutely-badass-old-poems/691382/7 "2014-06-22T19:57:42Z")
Well, there’s Boadicea: Must their ever-ravening eagle’s beak and talon annihilate us? Tear the noble heart of Britain, leave it gorily quivering? Bark an answer, Britain’s raven! bark and blacken innumerable, Blacken round the Roman carrion, make the carcase a skeleton, Kite and kestrel, wolf and wolfkin, from the wilderness, wallow in it, Till the face of Bel be brighten’d, Taranis be propitiated. Lo their colony half-defended! lo their colony, Camulodune! There the horde of Roman robbers mock at a barbarous adversary. There the hive of Roman liars worship a gluttonous emperor-idiot. ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2014, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/absolutely-badass-old-poems/691382/8 "2014-06-22T19:59:07Z")
> [@Oedipus](#): > > Does Tennyson have equal poems like that that are lesser known? How about “The Kraken”? Below the thunders of the upper deep, Far, far beneath in the abysmal sea, His ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep The Kraken sleepeth: faintest sunlights flee About his shadowy sides; above him swell Huge sponges of millennial growth and height; And far away into the sickly light, From many a wondrous grot and secret cell Unnumber’d and enormous polypi Winnow with giant arms the slumbering green. There hath he lain for ages, and will lie Battening upon huge sea-worms in his sleep, Until the latter fire shall heat the deep; Then once by man and angels to be seen, In roaring he shall rise and on the surface die. ---
**Author:** ![Dendarii\_Dame](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bbce88/32.png) [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2014, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/absolutely-badass-old-poems/691382/9 "2014-06-22T20:02:48Z")
I suggest Rudyard Kipling. Here’s a few titles, I’ll try to find the quotes later. Norman and Saxon, The Ballad of East and West, The Female of the Species. ---
**Author:** ![Dendarii\_Dame](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bbce88/32.png) [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2014, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/absolutely-badass-old-poems/691382/10 "2014-06-22T20:12:54Z")
I suggest Rudyard Kipling. Here’s a few titles: Norman and Saxon: "You can horsewhip your Gascony archers, or torture your Picardy spears; But don’t try that game on the Saxon; you’ll have the whole brood round your ears. From the richest old Thane in the county to the poorest chained serf in the field, They’ll be at you and on you like hornets, and, if you are wise, you will yield. The Ballad of East and West: "But if thou thinkest the price be fair - thy brethren wait to sup, "The hound is kin to the jackal-spawn - howl, dog, and call them up! "And if thou thinkest the price be high, in steer and gear and stack, "Give me my father’s mare again, and I’ll fight my own way back! " Kamal has gripped him by the hand and set him upon his feet. “No talk shall be of dogs,” said he, "when wolf and grey wolf meet. “May I eat dirt if thou hast hurt of me in deed or breath; “What dam of lances brought thee forth to jest at the dawn with Death?” Lightly answered the Colonel’s son: " I hold by the blood of my clan: Take up the mare for my father’s gift - by God, she has carried a man!” The Female of the Species: But the Woman that God gave him, every fibre of her frame Proves her launched for one sole issue, armed and engined for the same, And to serve that single issue, lest the generations fail, The female of the species must be deadlier than the male. She who faces Death by torture for each life beneath her breast May not deal in doubt or pity - must not swerve for fact or jest. These be purely male diversions - not in these her honor dwells - She, the Other Law we live by, is that Law and nothing else! ---
**Author:** ![Bridget\_Burke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7cd45c/32.png) [@Bridget\_Burke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bridget_Burke)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2014, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/absolutely-badass-old-poems/691382/11 "2014-06-22T20:13:48Z")
[Lepanto](http://www.gutenberg.org/files/31184/31184-h/31184-h.htm#LEPANTO) by G K Chesterton begins like this… > [@](#): > > White founts falling in the Courts of the sun, > And the Soldan of Byzantium is smiling as they run; > There is laughter like the fountains in that face of all men feared, > It stirs the forest darkness, the darkness of his beard, > It curls the blood-red crescent, the crescent of his lips, > For the inmost sea of all the earth is shake with his ships. > They have dared the white republics up the cape of Italy, > They have dashed the Adriatic round the Lion of the Sea, > And the Pope has cast his arms abroad for agony and loss, > And called the kings of Christendom for swords about the Cross. > The cold queen of England is looking in the glass; > The shadow of the Valois is yawning at the Mass; > From evening isles fantastical rings faint the Spanish gun, > And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun. [Puck’s Song](http://www.gutenberg.org/files/15976/15976-h/15976-h.htm) by Rudyard Kipling ends like this: > [@](#): > > Trackway and Camp and City lost, > Salt Marsh where now is corn; > Old Wars, old Peace, old Arts that cease, > And so was England born! > > She is not any common Earth, > Water or Wood or Air, > But Merlin’s Isle of Gramarye, > Where you and I will fare. Read the full works at Project Gutenberg. And find more poems (& prose) by both these badass bards while you’re there… ETA: And I see somebody else has beat me to Kipling… ---
**Author:** ![Dendarii\_Dame](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bbce88/32.png) [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2014, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/absolutely-badass-old-poems/691382/12 "2014-06-22T20:16:42Z")
Here’s part of a ballad, its authorship lost, called The Outlandish Knight: (Context: A serial killer knight has lured away a young woman from her father’s castle, and has told her he’s going to kill her. She tricks him into turning his back on her and shoves him into the ocean. He begs her to save him.) “Lie there, lie there, you false-hearted man. Lie there instead of me. Six pretty maids have you drowned here, But the seventh has drowned thee.” ---
**Author:** ![teela\_brown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d9b06d/32.png) [@teela\_brown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/teela_brown)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2014, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/absolutely-badass-old-poems/691382/13 "2014-06-22T20:22:18Z")
Here’s my favorite: Kubla Khan, by Samuel Taylor Coleridge In Xanadu did Kubla Khan A stately pleasure-dome decree: Where Alph, the sacred river, ran Through caverns measureless to man Down to a sunless sea. So twice five miles of fertile ground With walls and towers were girdled round; And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills, Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree; And here were forests ancient as the hills, Enfolding sunny spots of greenery. But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover! A savage place! as holy and enchanted As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted By woman wailing for her demon-lover! And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething, As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing, A mighty fountain momently was forced: Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail, Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher’s flail: And mid these dancing rocks at once and ever It flung up momently the sacred river. Five miles meandering with a mazy motion Through wood and dale the sacred river ran, Then reached the caverns measureless to man, And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean; And ’mid this tumult Kubla heard from far Ancestral voices prophesying war! The shadow of the dome of pleasure Floated midway on the waves; Where was heard the mingled measure From the fountain and the caves. It was a miracle of rare device, A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice! A damsel with a dulcimer In a vision once I saw: It was an Abyssinian maid And on her dulcimer she played, Singing of Mount Abora. Could I revive within me Her symphony and song, To such a deep delight ’twould win me, That with music loud and long, I would build that dome in air, That sunny dome! those caves of ice! And all who heard should see them there, And all should cry, Beware! Beware! His flashing eyes, his floating hair! Weave a circle round him thrice, And close your eyes with holy dread For he on honey-dew hath fed, And drunk the milk of Paradise. ---
**Author:** ![Oedipus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Oedipus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oedipus)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2014, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/absolutely-badass-old-poems/691382/14 "2014-06-22T20:28:45Z")
> [@Dendarii\_Dame](#): > > Here’s part of a ballad, its authorship lost, called The Outlandish Knight: > > (Context: A serial killer knight has lured away a young woman from her father’s castle, and has told her he’s going to kill her. She tricks him into turning his back on her and shoves him into the ocean. He begs her to save him.) > > “Lie there, lie there, you false-hearted man. > Lie there instead of me. > Six pretty maids have you drowned here, > But the seventh has drowned thee.” Holy shit I love that. Short, simple, effective ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2014, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/absolutely-badass-old-poems/691382/15 "2014-06-22T20:38:35Z")
Alfred, Lord Tennyson, _Ulysses_: … Come, my friends, ‘Tis not too late to seek a newer world. Push off, and sitting well in order smite The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths Of all the western stars, until I die. It may be that the gulfs will wash us down: It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles, And see the great Achilles, whom we knew. Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’ We are not now that strength which in old days Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are; One equal temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2014, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/absolutely-badass-old-poems/691382/16 "2014-06-22T20:58:58Z")
Sigfiried Sassoon, unlike some mentioned, had been in (too much) combat. _You had no babbling phrases; what you said Was like a message from the maimed and dead. But memory brought the voice I knew, whose note Was muted when they shot you in the throat; And still you whisper of the war, and find Sour jokes for all those horrors left behind._ ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2014, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/absolutely-badass-old-poems/691382/17 "2014-06-22T21:03:35Z")
Two of my favorites are _The Listeners_ and _The Highwayman_. ---
**Author:** ![standingwave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9de0a6/32.png) [@standingwave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/standingwave)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2014, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/absolutely-badass-old-poems/691382/18 "2014-06-22T21:10:08Z")
\*I never saw a wild thing \* \*sorry for itself. \* \*A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough \* \*without ever having felt sorry for itself.” \* —D. H. Lawrence ---
**Author:** ![Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/son_of_a_rich/32/5439_2.png) [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Son_of_a_Rich)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2014, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/absolutely-badass-old-poems/691382/19 "2014-06-22T21:47:21Z")
There’s a Tennyson poem about a crew of sailors who hated their captain so much that, when they were attacked, did nothing and they all went down with the ship. The name of it I don’t know, sorry. ---
**Author:** ![Octarine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/22d042/32.png) [@Octarine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Octarine)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2014, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/absolutely-badass-old-poems/691382/20 "2014-06-22T21:55:20Z")
The last two stanzas of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Conqueror Worm” might work: But see, amid the mimic rout A crawling shape intrude! A blood-red thing that writhes from out The scenic solitude! It writhes!- it writhes!- with mortal pangs The mimes become its food, And seraphs sob at vermin fangs In human gore imbued. Out- out are the lights- out all! And, over each quivering form, The curtain, a funeral pall, Comes down with the rush of a storm, While the angels, all pallid and wan, Uprising, unveiling, affirm That the play is the tragedy, “Man,” And its hero the Conqueror Worm. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/absolutely-badass-old-poems/691382.md?page=2)