Absolutely badass old poems

Cafe Society
61

How about “Invictus”?

[QUOTE=William Ernest Henley]

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
[/QUOTE]

(I’m rather ignorant of poetry, so was somewhat surprised that three of the prior submissions occurred to me when I saw thread title: Yeats’ “Second Coming,” Shelley’s “Ozymandias,” and some poems by Kipling.)

62

Came in to mention WBY’s The Second Coming, but was beaten to the punch, so…(excerpted from The Raven):
‘Prophet!’ said I, ‘thing of evil!- prophet still, if bird or
devil!-
Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,
Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted-
On this home by horror haunted- tell me truly, I implore-
Is there- is there balm in Gilead?- tell me- tell me, I implore!’
Quoth the Raven, ‘Nevermore.’

‘Prophet!’ said I, ‘thing of evil- prophet still, if bird or
devil!
By that Heaven that bends above us- by that God we both adore-
Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,
It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore-
Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore.’
Quoth the Raven, ‘Nevermore.’

‘Be that word our sign in parting, bird or fiend,’ I shrieked,
upstarting-
‘Get thee back into the tempest and the Night’s Plutonian shore!
Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!
Leave my loneliness unbroken!- quit the bust above my door!
Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my
door!’
Quoth the Raven, ‘Nevermore.’

And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming,
And the lamplight o’er him streaming throws his shadow on the
floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted- nevermore!
Edgar Allan Poe

63

And gives me Sandman flashbacks.

This thread made me look something up. I’ve know this T. S. Eliot quote for a long time.

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

It’s part of a longer poem called “Little Gidding”, the last of his Four Quartets. I have some reading to do, now.

64

I always liked Kipling’s Fuzzy Wuzzy:

We’ve fought with many men acrost the seas,
An’ some of ‘em was brave an’ some was not:
The Paythan an’ the Zulu an’ Burmese;
But the Fuzzy was the finest o’ the lot.
We never got a ha’porth’s change of 'im:
‘E squatted in the scrub an’ 'ocked our 'orses,
‘E cut our sentries up at Sua~kim~,
An’ ‘e played the cat an’ banjo with our forces.
So ‘ere’s ~to~ you, Fuzzy-Wuzzy, at your ‘ome in the Soudan;
You’re a pore benighted ‘eathen but a first-class fightin’ man;
We gives you your certificate, an’ if you want it signed
We’ll come an’ 'ave a romp with you whenever you’re inclined.

We took our chanst among the Khyber ‘ills,
The Boers knocked us silly at a mile,
The Burman give us Irriwaddy chills,
An’ a Zulu ~impi~ dished us up in style:
But all we ever got from such as they
Was pop to what the Fuzzy made us swaller;
We ‘eld our bloomin’ own, the papers say,
But man for man the Fuzzy knocked us ‘oller.
Then ‘ere’s ~to~ you, Fuzzy-Wuzzy, an’ the missis and the kid;
Our orders was to break you, an’ of course we went an’ did.
We sloshed you with Martinis, an’ it wasn’t ‘ardly fair;
But for all the odds agin’ you, Fuzzy-Wuz, you broke the square.

'E 'asn’t got no papers of 'is own,
'E 'asn’t got no medals nor rewards,
So we must certify the skill ‘e’s shown
In usin’ of 'is long two-'anded swords:
When ‘e’s ‘oppin’ in an’ out among the bush
With 'is coffin-‘eaded shield an’ shovel-spear,
An 'appy day with Fuzzy on the rush
Will last an 'ealthy Tommy for a year.
So ‘ere’s ~to~ you, Fuzzy-Wuzzy, an’ your friends which are no more,
If we ‘adn’t lost some messmates we would ‘elp you to deplore;
But give an’ take’s the gospel, an’ we’ll call the bargain fair,
For if you 'ave lost more than us, you crumpled up the square!

‘E rushes at the smoke when we let drive,
An’, before we know, 'e’s ‘ackin’ at our 'ead;
‘E’s all ‘ot sand an’ ginger when alive,
An’ ‘e’s generally shammin’ when 'e’s dead.
'E’s a daisy, 'e’s a ducky, 'e’s a lamb!
'E’s a injia-rubber idiot on the spree,
‘E’s the on’y thing that doesn’t give a damn
For a Regiment o’ British Infantree!
So 'ere’s ~to~ you, Fuzzy-Wuzzy, at your ‘ome in the Soudan;
You’re a pore benighted ‘eathen but a first-class fightin’ man;
An’ 'ere’s ~to~ you, Fuzzy-Wuzzy, with your 'ayrick 'ead of ‘air –
You big black boundin’ beggar – for you broke a British square!

65

For me the badassness in this poem is in the last four lines. It always takes my breath away.

=======================================
The Listeners - a poem by Walter de la Mare

‘Is there anybody there?’ said the Traveller,
Knocking on the moonlit door;
And his horse in the silence champed the grasses
Of the forest’s ferny floor:
And a bird flew up out of the turret,
Above the Traveller’s head
And he smote upon the door again a second time;
‘Is there anybody there?’ he said.
But no one descended to the Traveller;
No head from the leaf-fringed sill
Leaned over and looked into his grey eyes,
Where he stood perplexed and still.
But only a host of phantom listeners
That dwelt in the lone house then
Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight
To that voice from the world of men:
Stood thronging the faint moonbeams on the dark stair,
That goes down to the empty hall,
Hearkening in an air stirred and shaken
By the lonely Traveller’s call.
And he felt in his heart their strangeness,
Their stillness answering his cry,
While his horse moved, cropping the dark turf,
'Neath the starred and leafy sky;
For he suddenly smote on the door, even
Louder, and lifted his head:-
‘Tell them I came, and no one answered,
That I kept my word,’ he said.
Never the least stir made the listeners,
Though every word he spake
Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house
From the one man left awake:
Ay, they heard his foot upon the stirrup,
And the sound of iron on stone,
And how the silence surged softly backward,
When the plunging hoofs were gone.

66

Most of my suggestions are already here but I would say this might fall in the mix as well:

Among the Red Guns by Carl Sandburg

Among the red guns,
In the hearts of soldiers
Running free blood
In the long, long campaign:
Dreams go on.

Among the leather saddles,
In the heads of soldiers
Heavy in the wracks and kills
Of all straight fighting:
Dreams go on.

Among the hot muzzles,
In the hands of soldiers
Brought from flesh-folds of women–
Soft amid the blood and crying–
In all your hearts and heads
Among the guns and saddles and muzzles:

Dreams,
Dreams go on,
Out of the dead on their backs,
Broken and no use any more:
Dreams of the way and the end go on.

BTW, I can’t read The Raven anymore without it being Homer Simpson’s voice in my head. Stupid Halloween Specials…

67

That’s understandable. I can’t hear Tom Petty’s American Girl without thinking “It puts the lotion on its skin, or else it gets the hose again!”

68

I remember reading a parody of part of that poem that was rewritten to celebrate (heh heh) the 2000 US presidential elections, i.e. recount mania.

It goes something like this:

"And still of an autumn night they say, with the White House on the line,
When the campaign’s a ghostly galleon and both candidates cry, ‘Tis mine!’
When the road is a ribbon of ballots, all within easy reach,
A highwayman comes riding, riding, riding,
A highwayman comes riding,

and punches two holes in each."

69

If I was going to get a tattoo, it would probably be either the first two lines, or the ones toward the end.
I Have a Rendezvous with Death - Alan Seeger

**I have a rendezvous with Death
At some disputed barricade, **
When Spring comes back with rustling shade
And apple-blossoms fill the air—
I have a rendezvous with Death
When Spring brings back blue days and fair.

It may be he shall take my hand
And lead me into his dark land
And close my eyes and quench my breath—
It may be I shall pass him still.
I have a rendezvous with Death
On some scarred slope of battered hill,
When Spring comes round again this year
And the first meadow-flowers appear.

God knows ‘twere better to be deep
Pillowed in silk and scented down,
Where love throbs out in blissful sleep,
Pulse nigh to pulse, and breath to breath,
Where hushed awakenings are dear…
**But I’ve a rendezvous with Death
At midnight in some flaming town, **
When Spring trips north again this year,
And I to my pledged word am true,
I shall not fail that rendezvous.

70

I thought of another one that is badass in another way.

========================================

Medusa

I had come to the house, in a cave of trees,
Facing a sheer sky.
Everything moved, – a bell hung ready to strike,
Sun and reflection wheeled by.

When the bare eyes were before me
And the hissing hair,
Held up at a window, seen through a door.
The stiff bald eyes, the serpents on the forehead
Formed in the air.

This is a dead scene forever now.
Nothing will ever stir.
The end will never brighten it more than this,
Nor the rain blur.

The water will always fall, and will not fall,
And the tipped bell make no sound.
The grass will always be growing for hay
Deep on the ground.

And I shall stand here like a shadow
Under the great balanced day,
My eyes on the yellow dust, that was lifting in the wind,
And does not drift away.

Louise Bogan

71

“Of Wounds and Sore Defeat”, by William Vaugh Moody, which seems to be an excerpt from a longer work, but
I love the lines, “From the shutting mist of death/From the failure of the breath/I made a battle horn to blow/Across the vales of overthrow/Oh, hearken, love, the battle horn!”

72

The Man With the Hoe, by Edwin Markham.

Check the link for the whole poem. Here is the first verse;

Bowed by the weight of centuries he leans
Upon his hoe and gazes on the ground,
The emptiness of ages in his face,
And on his back the burden of the world.
Who made him dead to rapture and despair,
A thing that grieves not and that never hopes,
Stolid and stunned, a brother to the ox?
Who loosened and let down this brutal jaw?
Whose was the hand that slanted back this brow?
Whose breath blew out the light within this brain?

73

Ach! A couple of more old favorites, 'don’t know how they slipped my mind…

Andreas Gryphius, ‘Tears of the Fatherland’ (1636) (One translation)

Full now—yea, more than full—behold our devastation:
The frantic drum beat, and the brazen horde,
The thundering siege gun, and the blood-slick sword
Devour all diligence, and sweat, and careful preparation.

The church is overthrown; our mighty men are slain;
The town hall lies in dust; our towers burn;
Virgins are raped; and everywhere we turn
Are fire, plague, and death to pierce us—heart and brain.

Down walls and through the town runs always fresh-spilled blood
For eighteen summers now, our river’s yearly flood
Near-choked with corpses, has pushed slowly, slowly on

But nothing will I say of one thing—worse, I know,
Than death, more grim than plague, or fire, or hunger’s woe:
Those pillaged souls from whom even hope of heaven is gone.

Also sampled musically.

And, of course, perhaps the grandaddy of them all…

“Through a Glass, Darkly”—General George S. Patton, Jr.

Through the travail of the ages,
Midst the pomp and toil of war,
I have fought and strove and perished
Countless times upon this star.

In the form of many people
In all panoplies of time
Have I seen the luring vision
Of the Victory Maid, sublime.

I have battled for fresh mammoth,
I have warred for pastures new,
I have listed to the whispers
When the race trek instinct grew.

I have known the call to battle
In each changeless changing shape
From the high souled voice of conscience
To the beastly lust for rape.

I have sinned and I have suffered,
Played the hero and the knave;
Fought for belly, shame, or country,
And for each have found a grave.

I cannot name my battles
For the visions are not clear,
Yet, I see the twisted faces
And I feel the rending spear.

Perhaps I stabbed our Savior
In His sacred helpless side.
Yet, I’ve called His name in blessing
When after times I died.

In the dimness of the shadows
Where we hairy heathens warred,
I can taste in thought the lifeblood;
We used teeth before the sword.

While in later clearer vision
I can sense the coppery sweat,
Feel the pikes grow wet and slippery
When our Phalanx, Cyrus met.

Hear the rattle of the harness
Where the Persian darts bounced clear,
See their chariots wheel in panic
From the Hoplite’s leveled spear.

See the goal grow monthly longer,
Reaching for the walls of Tyre.
Hear the crash of tons of granite,
Smell the quenchless eastern fire.

Still more clearly as a Roman,
Can I see the Legion close,
As our third rank moved in forward
And the short sword found our foes.

Once again I feel the anguish
Of that blistering treeless plain
When the Parthian showered death bolts,
And our discipline was in vain.

I remember all the suffering
Of those arrows in my neck.
Yet, I stabbed a grinning savage
As I died upon my back.

Once again I smell the heat sparks
When my Flemish plate gave way
And the lance ripped through my entrails
As on Crecy’s field I lay.

In the windless, blinding stillness
Of the glittering tropic sea
I can see the bubbles rising
Where we set the captives free.

Midst the spume of half a tempest
I have heard the bulwarks go
When the crashing, point blank round shot
Sent destruction to our foe.

I have fought with gun and cutlass
On the red and slippery deck
With all Hell aflame within me
And a rope around my neck.

And still later as a General
Have I galloped with Murat
When we laughed at death and numbers
Trusting in the Emperor’s Star.

Till at last our star faded,
And we shouted to our doom
Where the sunken road of Ohein
Closed us in it’s quivering gloom.

So but now with Tanks a’clatter
Have I waddled on the foe
Belching death at twenty paces,
By the star shell’s ghastly glow.

So as through a glass, and darkly
The age long strife I see
Where I fought in many guises,
Many names, but always me.

And I see not in my blindness
What the objects were I wrought,
But as God rules o’er our bickerings
It was through His will I fought.

So forever in the future,
Shall I battle as of yore,
Dying to be born a fighter,
But to die again, once more.

74

Thanks Ranchoth. I’ve only heard the lines that Scott said in the movie, never read the whole thing before. I think I like these best…

I have sinned and I have suffered,
Played the hero and the knave;
Fought for belly, shame, or country,
And for each have found a grave.

75

How old are you looking for? I love Ogden Nash’s A Tale of the Thirteenth Floor. It’s spooky, dark, twisted and so different from his humerous poems. A little research can find all the characters. I think it would be cool for someone to do an updated version today.

76

And this is from The Jungle Book, so it’s more Kipling:

(Bagheera is speaking to Mowgli): Feed them silence when they say, “Come with us the easy way.”/Feed them silence when they seek help of thine to harm the weak."

Great advice when talking to kids about peer pressure/bullying.

77

From the Poetic Edda, speaking of the coming of Ragnarök:

Brothers will fight
and kill each other,
sisters' children
will defile kinship.
It is harsh in the world,
whoredom rife
—an axe age, a sword age
—shields are riven—
a wind age, a wolf age—
before the world goes headlong.
No man will have
mercy on another.

Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night - By Dylan Thomas

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

78

Thank you. That was the one I was trying to remember.

79

I Sing of Olaf glad and big is not really all that old, I suppose, but is pretty damn badass. In several ways.
And usually makes me want to kill someone. Or cry. Or both.

80

Many faves mentioned, especially Eliot and Yeats, here’s another closing couplet from Tennyson - from “Ulysses”, which is about an aged Odysseus refusing to die quietly in his old age after a heroically lived life.

They always say to consider what a tattoo week look like or seems like when you’re 75 instead of 25 years old. This would stand the test of time, even get better with age.

Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.