Emotional Poems for Veterans Day

When emotions take over, the poet within you often emerges. These Veterans Day excerpts from poems touch the heart and soul of every patriot. They will send chills down your spine. They bring the horror of war home. If you know a veteran, share these words to let them know their devotion to country is important and appreciated. Veterans Day Poems Stephen Crane War Is Kind Do not weep, babe, for war is kind.Because your father tumbles in the yellow trenches,Raged at his breast, gulped and died,Do not weep.War is kind. Philip Freneau On the Departure of the British From Charleston But fame is theirs — and future daysOn pillard brass shall tell their praise;Shall tell — when cold neglect is dead —These for their country fought and bled. Walt Whitman Leaves of Grass I saw battle-corpses, myriads of them,And the white skeletons of young men — I saw them;I saw the debris and debris of all the dead soldiers of the war;But I saw they were not as was thought;They themselves were fully at rest — they suffer’d not;The living remain’d and suffer’d  Ã¢â‚¬â€ the mother suffer’d,And the wife and the child, and the musing comrade suffer’d,And the armies that remain’d suffer’d. Edgar Guest The Things That Make a Soldier Great Endanger but that humble street whereon his children run,You make a soldier of the man who never bore a gun.What is it through the battle smoke the valiant soldier sees? John McCrae In Flanders Fields In Flanders fields the poppies blowBetween the crosses, row on row,That mark our place; and in the skyThe larks, still bravely singing, flyScarce heard amid the guns below. Li Po Nefarious War In the battlefield men grapple each other and die;The horses of the vanquished utter lamentable cries to heaven,While ravens and kites peck at human entrails,Carry them up in their flight, and hang them on the branches of dead trees. Rudyard Kipling Tommy Its Tommy this, and Tommy that,And chuck him out the brute,But its Savior of his Country,When the guns begin to shoot. Siegfried Sassoon Aftermath But the past is just the same — and War’s a bloody game...Have you forgotten yet?...Look down, and swear by the slain of the War that you’ll never forget. Wilfred Owen Anthem for Doomed Youth What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?Only the monstrous anger of the guns.Only the stuttering rifles’ rapid rattleCan patter out their hasty orisons. Alfred, Lord Tennyson The Charge of the Light Brigade Half a league, half a league,Half a league onward,All in the valley of DeathRode the six hundred.‘Forward, the Light Brigade!Charge for the guns!’ he said:Into the valley of DeathRode the six hundred. Elizabeth Barrett Browning Mother and Poet Dead! One of them shot by the sea in the east,And one of them shot in the west by the sea.Dead! both my boys! When you sit at the feastAnd are wanting a great song for Italy free,Let none look at me! Sophie Jewett Armistice We pray the fickle flag of truceStill float deceitfully and fair;Our eyes must love its sweet abuse;This hour we will not care,Though just beyond to-morrows gate,Arrayed and strong, the battle wait.