Epic Poems
What Were They Like?
by Denise Levertov
Did the people of Viet Nam
use lanterns of stone?
Did they hold ceremonies
to reverence the opening of buds?
Were they inclined to quiet laughter?
Did they use bone and ivory,
jade and silver, for ornament?
Had they an epic poem?
Did they distinguish between speech and singing?
......
Don Juan: Canto The Eighth
by George Gordon Byron
The town was taken--whether he might yield
Himself or bastion, little matter'd now:
His stubborn valour was no future shield.
Ismail's no more! The Crescent's silver bow
Sunk, and the crimson Cross glar'd o'er the field,
But red with no redeeming gore: the glow
Of burning streets, like moonlight on the water,
Was imag'd back in blood, the sea of slaughter.
All that the mind would shrink from of excesses;
......
Woman And War
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
We women teach our little sons how wrong
And how ignoble blows are; school and church
Support our precepts and inoculate
The growing minds with thoughts of love and peace.
‘Let dogs delight to bark and bite, ’ we say;
But human beings with immortal souls
Must rise above the methods of the brute
And walk with reason and with self-control.
And then – dear God! you men, you wise, strong men,
......
Volcano
by Al Gibson
As the eruption began smoke formed a cloud and darkened the sun,
down the mountain the molten rock begins to run,
the volcano has taken charge and will have so much fun,
nothing will interfere with this master until it's done. Disruptive, Destroying, and shaking the earth while the air becomes dry,
everything aflame that was within its path,
all worldly and natural possessions exhales a deathly cry,
at the pain that is felt of this woeful wrath. Then without warning, ash begins to fall in a dusty shower,
it's the remnants of destruction of this great power,
calming there is a display of the scars of a great war,
remain subtle, nature rules, and now is angry no more. Memory will fill many an epic tale,
......
The Spooniad
by Edgar Lee Masters
Of John Cabanis' wrath and of the strife
Of hostile parties, and his dire defeat
Who led the common people in the cause
Of freedom for Spoon River, and the fall
Of Rhodes' bank that brought unnumbered woes
And loss to many, with engendered hate
That flamed into the torch in Anarch hands
To burn the court-house, on whose blackened wreck
A fairer temple rose and Progress stood --
Sing, muse, that lit the Chian's face with smiles,
......
The day of rage
by Phillip Nine-Mafunga
He rode on a colt
To raid our vault
While sychophants find no fault
We have to bring this to a hault
By the gun an'the bullet as we revolt
All that fat will not hold
Our rage will bring all this to nought
PHILLIP NINE MAFUNGA
28 JULY 2024
Echo, Bells of Harmony
by Quinn Smorenburg
Echo, bells of harmony.
Ring your radiance down valleys
so cold. Shatter black ice covering
land. Make heavy shapes get up
and stand. Your gift guides paradise,
coming this way.
Resound, oh bells of harmony.
Fold your music as solid and shove
every ear idly lying; their souls slowly dying.
......
Woman And War
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
We women teach our little sons how wrong
And how ignoble blows are; school and church
Support our precepts and inoculate
The growing minds with thoughts of love and peace.
‘Let dogs delight to bark and bite, ’ we say;
But human beings with immortal souls
Must rise above the methods of the brute
And walk with reason and with self-control.
And then – dear God! you men, you wise, strong men,
......
The Revelation
by Robert William Service
The same old sprint in the morning, boys, to the same old din and smut;
Chained all day to the same old desk, down in the same old rut;
Posting the same old greasy books, catching the same old train:
Oh, how will I manage to stick it all, if I ever get back again?
We've bidden good-bye to life in a cage, we're finished with pushing a pen;
They're pumping us full of bellicose rage, they're showing us how to be men.
We're only beginning to find ourselves; we're wonders of brawn and thew;
But when we go back to our Sissy jobs, -- oh, what are we going to do?
......
Kathleen
by Robert William Service
It was the steamer Alice May that sailed the Yukon foam.
And touched in every river camp from Dawson down to Nome.
It was her builder, owner, pilot, Captain Silas Geer,
Who took her through the angry ice, the last boat of the year;
Who patched her cracks with gunny sacks and wound her pipes with wire,
And cut the spruce upon the banks to feed her boiler fire;
Who headed her into the stream and bucked its mighty flow,
And nosed her up the little creeks where no one else would go;
Who bragged she had so small a draft, if dew were on the grass,
With gallant heart and half a start his little boat would pass.
......
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Arthur Patchett Martin (1 poems about Epic)
18 February 1851 – 15 February 1902 / Woolwich, Kent, England -