23 Famous Holiday Poems - Classic Popular Poetry for the Holidays

21. The Feast Of Freedom

By Philip M. Raskin

Famous Poem

Passover (or Pesach as it's called in Hebrew) is the Festival of Freedom, a Jewish Holiday commemorating the liberation of the ancient Israelites from Slavery in Egypt.
Passover is celebrated in the springtime. The poet uses the different seasons as metaphors to time periods in the history of the Jewish people. Winter is slavery and exile when Israel and the Jewish people are ruled by others. Spring, the revival of freedom. Summer, the time when Israel ruled itself with the temple in Jerusalem.

I REMEMBER in my childhood
From my grandfather I heard
Charming tales of gone-by ages
That my soul so deeply stirred.

Charming tales of ancient sages
That I felt I knew were true;
Stories of the hoary ages
That remain forever new.

Of the Pesach-days he told me,
Days that joy and sunshine bring;
Of the Festival of Freedom,
Of Revival and of Spring.

Of the slave-people in Egypt,
Whose hot blood so rashly spilled,
Soaked into cold bricks and mortar
Of the fortresses they built.

How on them, the God-forsaken,
After gloomy wintry days,
Shone at last the rays of freedom,
Heaven's bright and cheerful rays.

How among them rose a leader,
Star-like in a gloomy night,
And he pleaded for their freedom,
And he crushed a tyrant's might.

How he taught the fettered people
Not in vain their blood to spill,
Turning bondmen into freemen,
Men of honor and of will.

How the people's march to Freedom
Could no despot's might restrain,
Till before their will resistless
Stormy ocean oped in twain.

"Then it was our people's springtime,
After which a summer came,
Followed by a golden harvest,
Free from yoke and free from shame."

"Grand-sire, dear," I asked enraptured,
"How long did that summer last?"
But he sadly gazed and pondered,
And he answered me at last.

"Child, it was a long, bright summer,
But a winter came again,
Came with cold and snow and showers,
With its gales of grief and pain.

"Frost and tempest-strife, contention--
Raged once more in every part,
Stealing into souls and freezing
Will and hope in every heart.

"Furious storm once more dispersed us;
Israel rendered free and great,
Into lands of cruel despots
Went to face a bondman's fate."

"Grand-sire, dear, why does this winter
Seem so endless, then?"--I sighed--
And two crystal tears were trembling
In his eyes when he replied.

"Yes, my boy, it seems so endless,
But it cannot, will not be;
Israel will not slave forever,
One day, child, he will be free.

"In his soul will re-awaken
Courage, will, and pride, and might;
Freedom's sunrise must needs follow
Israel's starless exile night.

"But till then, ere spring's arrival--
For the winter's steps are slow--
Pesach is a sweet remembrance
Of a spring of long ago."

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22. We Bought A Lot Of Candy Bars

By Kenn Nesbitt

Famous Poem

Buying Halloween candy early enough in the season provides a lot of options, but sometimes having it in the house for too long before October 31st can be a problem.

We bought a lot of candy bars.
We thought it would be neat
to have a ton for all the kids
who came to trick-or-treat.

We bought them early in the month
when they were all on sale.
We dragged the bags in from the car
and set them on the scale.

The candy weighed a hundred pounds!
I’m sure we got enough.
In fact, we may have had too much
of all that yummy stuff.

It wouldn’t hurt to just eat one,
or two, or three, or four.
We bought so much that we could
even eat a dozen more.

So every day we had a few;
a minuscule amount.
How many? I can’t say for sure.
I wasn’t keeping count.

Our pile grew smaller every day
by ten, fifteen, or twenty.
But, still, it didn’t matter.
We were certain we had plenty.

When Halloween arrived we checked
the candy situation,
and found that we had given in
to way too much temptation.

A single bar was all we had.
We’d eaten all the rest.
So, if our lights are off tonight,
I think that’s for the best.

“We Bought a Lot of Candy Bars” copyright © 2020 Kenn Nesbitt. All Rights Reserved. Reprinted by permission of the author. www.poetry4kids.com

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23. A Vampire Bit My Neck Last Night

By Kenn Nesbitt

Famous Poem

Halloween can be filled with many scary things for children. It’s easy to let our imaginations run away with us.

A vampire bit my neck last night.
And, though it sounds insane,
some zombies chased me down the street
and tried to eat my brain.

A mummy shambled after me.
Godzilla stomped my face.
I nearly I got abducted by
an alien from space.

When Frankenstein attacked me
I escaped, but then almost
got tackled by a skeleton,
a werewolf, and a ghost.

A slimy blob engulfed me.
Then I woke up with a scream.
I’ve never been so overjoyed
to wake up from a dream.

Last night I learned a lesson;
if you want to keep your head,
don’t watch a scary movie
right before you go to bed.

“A Vampire Bit My Neck Last night” copyright © 2021 Kenn Nesbitt. All Rights Reserved. Reprinted by permission of the author. www.poetry4kids.com