Epic Poetry Quotes

“I live not in myself, but I become
Portion of that around me: and to me
High mountains are a feeling, but the hum
of human cities torture.”
― George Gordon Byron, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage

“Vera incessu patuit dea.
(The goddess indubitable was revealed in her step.)”
― Virgil, The Aeneid

“Yet gold all is not, that doth gold seem,
Nor all good knights, that shake well spear and shield:
The worth of all men by their end esteem,
And then praise, or due reproach them yield.”
― Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, Book Two

“Irony is the kid who steals music and is stolen by the music.”
― MEDVGNO, THE AWFUL RIFFMAKER

“El hecho es que la participación de un dragón en la epopeya de Beowulf parece disminuirla a nuestro ojos. Creemos en el león como realidad y como símbolo; creemos en el minotauro como símbolo, ya que no como realidad; pero el dragón se el menos afortunado de los animales fabulosos.”
― Jorge Luis Borges, Literaturas germánicas medievales

“No force can oppose Love in Earth or Heaven above, No, not even the damned of Hell can stop relentless Love.

—Valkyrie Kari, Chapter Sixteen
Valley of the Damned
Original Quote”
― douglas laurent

“Novels aren’t about heroes. They’re about us. The novel is a literary form that arose at the same time as the middle class in Europe, those people of small business and property who are neither peasant nor aristocrat, and it has always treated of the middle class. Both lyric and epic poetry grew out of a time that was elitist, a time that believed in the innate rate of royalty to rule and the rest of us to amount to not very much. Hardly surprising, then, that both forms lean toward the aristocratic in subject matter and treatment. The novel, on the other hand, isn’t about them; it’s about us.”
― Thomas C. Foster, How to Read Novels Like a Professor: A Jaunty Exploration of the World's Favorite Literary Form

“Samurai: I have searched for you a very long time.
Kari: Do not waste breath, kill. It is our way here.
Samurai: Not before I have my say, Corpse-eater.
Kari: No wonder you took so long to find me.

on Valkyrie Kari,, Garden of the Dragons, Vol, iiii”
― Douglas Laurent

“Even the Empyrean Vaults, the highest of Heavens and the lowest Helks of the Abyss could not contain the Valkyrie’s love, whose a’spiraling ability to end refrains upon the point of her own edged soul out-paced even the stop-clocks of all Nethereternity. And thus, by her own delicate hand, sought to destroy the solitary stalking evil so that multitudes might live.

—On Valkyrie Kari, Garden of the Dragons”
― douglas m. laurent

“Summer spirit, now she closes book’s end,
Days of youth spent, carefree with friends.
Kari plays now to that what she does not wish,
Lost summers days and angelic youth a’ missed.
Seasons do change and children grow up,
Passing through lives, life never stops.
Endless years, bleak they the mind,
Adventures of youth, throttle in time.
Desires entwine, one grows old,
Love loses her grasp, love slips from her hold.
Bygone dreams, sleep they soundly by,
Hopes for another child, not her soul-self I.
Grasped for never, dreams never learn to fly
(Within one’s dungeon, the darkest place to die).
And Winter’s chill, lays she to rest,
Dreams unobtained, fallen in the quest.
Kari knew she was but a dream, solo in its flight,
Ne’er taking wing again to caress innocence’s light.
And to live and live as she once is and now,
Stands she forever, stranded on time’s fallowed ground.
The love she lost she can never now have,
Graspless eternity plucked burning from her hands.
Love forsaken, the summer, silent and high,
Tears shed for what was once and not now, I.
Dreamless hopes far long spent,
Lie shallow within, deep strength relents.
A hollow traverse of endless life,
Lives she the knowing of eternalness light.
Aye, silent dreams slip they the day’s long night,
To tell of loves once beholden now lost in her sight.
In love’s abandonment, Kari, spills she away,
To dream upon those clouds again on some somber, summer day.
Thus, before evening rusts corrode the golden days,
Before innocence is raped and youth spirited away,
Before night blossoms forth, and day forgets day,
Summer’s love requests of us that we all do stay–
To hear a tale one has long since heard before,
To tell our souls twice over now and forevermore–
Graves are full of those who never lived but could,
Heaven and Hell are packed with those who knew they should,
And eternity, relentless eternity, brims with those that would.”
― Douglas M. Laurent

“«Heu, miserande puer, si qua fata aspera rumpas,
tu Marcellus eris. Manibus date lilia plenis,
purpureos spargam flores...»

«O giovane degno di pietà, se solo tu potessi rompere il tuo fato crudele,
tu sarai Marcello. Versate gigli a piene mani,
che io sparga fiori purpurei...»”
― Virgil, The Aeneid

“Slaying demons is a warrior’s claim,
Until a demon tells its tales,
Though a warrior sees the stakes,
A demon’s heart he must take.”
― Paul Bamikole, Renegades And Other Soulful Poems

“To the right hand I turned, and fixed my mind/ Upon the other pole, and saw four stars/ Ne’er seen before save by the primal people.

Rejoicing in their flamelets seemed the heaven./ O thou septentrional and widowed site, / Because thou art deprived of seeing these!”
― Dante Alighieri, Purgatorio: The Divine Comedy

“Before my father's grave, I sit alone.
Upon some sheets of grimy paper, I write
My tale, the most dreaded of known tales,
A tale whose grisly facts poured out
Across the plains of vast Arabia.”
― Yousef Alqamoussi, The Massacre of Heartbreak Morrow

“O my people, whenever ye drink
A drop of water, remember me.
Or if ye hear of butchered men
And headless stiffs, surrender thee;
For I am the one who lies in shreds
Where my cruel foes dismembered me!”
― Yousef Alqamoussi, The Massacre of Heartbreak Morrow

“Undiluted, he is lesser than all
the Lesser Prophets combined
Now the disease we will find
is his cure, his call, and mankind’s downfall
—The Fallo Terminus (LVI)”
― Daniel Scott Westby, Goblin Winter: of Puppet Kings and Telling Sins

“The burning coals turned red,
What's gulped down won't come back.
The tiger is lurking in the high steppes, they say,
The Kyrgyz heart is pounding...

Will the Kyrgyz, locked up, now die, alas?
Will every one of our people become a Chinaman, alas?
Will it put fear in the heart, alas?
Will the ugly-faced dark Chinese,
Enjoy trampling us down, alas?”
― Hamid Ismailov, Manaschi

“والآن‎ في فصل الحنينِ
وحين يعرى حزن أيلول
‎ لأنسام الشتاءْ
‎ ينتابني وجعٌ وأسئلةٌ
لماذا الحزن مع عين السماءْ؟
‎ ولأيّ قلبٍ كلّما انهمرت سماءٌ
‎ فوق أرضٍ
‎أشتهي حبّاً مضى...
‎ وتفوحُ رائحةُ النساءْ…”
― Mahdi Mansour

“الساكنون بهذا القلب قد عرفوا
أن السعادة لا تعني سوى الأملِ…
كل البلاد سجونٌ غير آمنةٍ…
إلا متى وجه مَن في البال، يضحك لي!”
― Mahdi Mansour

“أجمل تجليات الله، قلوب العاشقين… وأجمل تجليات العشق، عيون المؤمنين… هنا حيث العشق إيمان، والحجر كالشجر، والكلام كالسلام، يجد الشعر الضوء ليخرج بانسيابية من بين أنامل الأطفال وكسور الأفئدة…”
― Mahdi Mansour

“لَكِ فُسْحَةٌ كُبْرى بِذاكِرَتي
‎فَتَحَفَّظي, أَرْجوكِ سَيّدَتي
‎لا تاجَ عِنْدي...لا قصور معي...
‎حَتّى تَكوني أَنْتِ مَمْلَكَتي
‎لا تُجْهِدي عَيْنَيْكِ بي فَأَنا
‎رَجُلٌ جِراحاتُ الهَوى لُغَتي
‎أُشْفى مِنِ امْرَأَةٍ بِإِمْرَأَةٍ
‎فَأَحُلُّ مُشْكِلَتي بِمُشْكِلَةِ…”
― Mahdi Mansour

“كل صباح أرفع كوب الماء، وأتركه.
‎هكذا أطمئن إلى أن العالم لم يتغير، وقوانينه ما زالت تعمل...”
― Mahdi Mansour

“لم يكن لنا أجنحة، فاعتمدنا الخيال وسيلة للسفر...
لم يكن لنا هوية، فحفرنا ملامحنا في الحجر...
لم يكن لنا وطن، فصرنا نقلّد حيث نقيم خصال الشجر…”
― Mahdi Mansour

“لأنك أمعنت شكاً وظنّا
سأذكر أجمل ما كان منا
وأمضي، فلا البحر ضمّ الشراع
ولا الريح سارت كما نتمنى
وما دمت لا تطمئن بقربي
سأرحل عنك لكي تطمئنا...”
― Mahdi Mansour

“ليتني شجرةٌ،
لا أغادر بيتي وراء الأحبة إذ يرحلونْ...
كلما حفر الناس صدري بأسمائهم،
قلت: لا بأس أن يجرٓحٓ العاشقونْ...”
― Mahdi Mansour

“لا تقترب من كثيراً...
ابتعدْ حتى أراك...”
― Mahdi Mansour

“Villicus Vadum: Soldier Of Fortune by Stewart Stafford

I am the ghost of lupine Romulus,
Founder of Rome, hear my tale,
Of Villicus Vadum - young, driven,
Steward to Senator Lucius Flavius.

Villicus wanted Flavia, the senator’s daughter,
But she was betrothed to Marcus Brutus;
A consul of noble and virtuous stock,
Villicus conspired to take Flavia's hand.

Treachery and deception were his tools,
Knavish peacock of Rome's epic stage,
Sought to take Flavia from Marcus Brutus,
To snatch and cage his treasured gem.

Bribed a false soothsayer to trap her,
Believing her beloved began with V,
Flavia agreed to elope with him to Gaul,
With Brutus vowing deadly vengeance.

Fleeing to the bosom of Rome's enemy -
Vercingetorix, at war with Julius Caesar,
Villicus offered to spy on the Senate,
While plotting to seize Gaul's throne.

Queen Verica also caught his eye,
Villicus was captured by Mark Antony,
Taken to Caesar's camp as a traitor;
Brutus challenged him to a duel.

Brutus slashed him but spared his life,
They dragged Villicus to Rome in chains,
To try him for his now infamous crimes;
Cicero in defence, Cato as prosecutor.

Cicero argued Villicus acted out of love,
And that his ambition merited mercy,
Cato wanted death for his wicked threat,
Julius Caesar pondered a final verdict.

Villicus - pardoned but banished from Rome,
Immediate death if he returned to Flavia,
Villicus kissed the emperor's foot for naught,
Flavia refused to join him in fallen exile.

Now learn from this outcast's example, friends,
That I, Romulus, warn you to avoid at your peril,
Villicus Vadum, the wrath of the gods upon him,
Until time ceases, sole spectre of night's edge.

© Stewart Stafford, 2023. All rights reserved.”
― Stewart Stafford

“The Peacock & The Eagle: Cleopatra's Entry Into Tarsus by Stewart Stafford

Cleopatra arrives, regal and mighty,
From ocean spray as Aphrodite,
Wealthy and waif, yearning for her,
Dared all to defy her possessive aura.

Mark Antony, struck by her sultry gaze,
Lepidus, prisoner in a bureaucrat's maze,
Sees power slipping from a friend’s hand,
Ensnared by a siren from a scorched land.

Lepidus was Caesar's trusted right hand;
A granule falling through hourglass sand,
Antony, headstrong military provocateur;
Funeral orator from bloody crown auteur.

Bargain's scorpion pincers; no longer twain:
Cleopatra was Ceres, promising Rome grain,
Antony was Mars' armed emissary,
Business and pleasure's flood tributary.

Antony: "Barge of emerald, Elysium's onyx!
Beyond counsel words of sage sardonic,
Gliding the Cydnus's silken seam,
This Nile Helen shall be my queen."

Lepidus: "Pleasure vessel of a floating whore,
Yours for a sesterce on the Tiber's shore,
Honour your oath, noble Roman creed,
Lest passion’s shipwreck sets out to sea.”

"This Venus virago on her mirage barge;
Serpent prow, silver oars, rhythmic charge!
What hubris to think she can equal,
The bloody talons of our Roman eagle!"

Antony: "Feast your eyes past peacock's bower,
She speaks Rome's tongue of naked power.
Mark it, that obsidian Sphinx stings -
Human head, lion's body, eagle wings!

"That is the form she takes to the public:
I smell a perfumed alliance for the Republic!
With Plebeians as her tickled cats, they hum,
I crave her beauty and company. Come!"

© 2024, Stewart Stafford. All rights reserved.”
― Stewart Stafford

“As madcap whitecaps hammered at the hulls,
the bowsprits breasting saw-toothed waves
now high and mighty, now abject, the Sun
looked down and watched the boats—so bantam, meek,
and of no consequence—become engulfed
by stormclouds smothering the sallow sea.
A norther hurled its curses at the fleet
as in return garboards and sheerstrakes groaned
amidst the helter-skelter of loud shouts.
With drenched and veiny arms the tillers clenched
the quarter rudders, trying to prevent
the roaring ocean, frothing at the mouth,
from swallowing the ships they’d sworn to guide
while thinking: Who, in the last instance, can
withstand its infinite, digestive force?
Anon this beast became a lesser cause
for fear, supplanted by the high-pitched shrieks
of something neither man nor animal
that lurked beyond them in the ebon drear,
its contour barely visible by turns
when intermittent bolts transpierced the sky.
(Canaäd, XV 271-91)”
― D.A. Wood

“A Ravaging Sentinel's Vow by Stewart Stafford

State your love for me now —
Agreed, a cracked heart pledge,
Defying your many flaws,
martyring me to betrayal's dredge.

At your darkest dawn —
My fealty oath holds true,
when every back is turned,
a redeeming ravager’s purview.

A sentinel’s dust trail climbs high,
hooves thunder; the sundial stops,
A vow declared, enemies routed,
disaster reined on teetering clifftops.

© 2025, Stewart Stafford. All rights reserved.”
― Stewart Stafford