Famous Conceit Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Conceit poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous conceit poems. These examples illustrate what a famous conceit poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Burns, Robert
...sark and swim,
E’er they would grate their feelings wi’ the view
O’ sic an ugly, Gothic hulk as you.”
AULD BRIG “Conceited gowk! puff’d up wi’ windy pride!
This mony a year I’ve stood the flood an’ tide;
And tho’ wi’ crazy eild I’m sair forfairn,
I’ll be a brig when ye’re a shapeless cairn!
As yet ye little ken about the matter,
But twa-three winters will inform ye better.
When heavy, dark, continued, a’-day rains,
Wi’ deepening deluges o’erflow the plains;
When fr...Read more of this...
by
Suckling, Sir John
...imself had guilty been,
(She looked that day so purely);
And, did the youth so oft the feat
At night, as some did in conceit,
It would have spoiled him surely.
Just in the nick, the cook knocked thrice,
And all the waiters in a trice
His summons did obey.
Each servingman, with dish in hand,
Marched boldly up, like our trained band,
Presented, and away.
When all the meat was on the table,
What man of knife or teeth was able
To stay to be entreated?
An...Read more of this...
by
Angelou, Maya
...Give me your hand
Make room for me
to lead and follow
you
beyond this rage of poetry.
Let others have
the privacy of
touching words
and love of loss
of love.
For me
Give me your hand....Read more of this...
by
Smart, Christopher
...t,
The genuine word repeat:
Vain are the documents of men,
And vain the flourish of the pen
That keeps the fool's conceit.
L
PRAISE above all—for praise prevails;
Heap up the measure, load the scales,
And good to goodness add:
The gen'rous soul her Saviour aids,
But peevish obloquy degrades;
The Lord is great and glad.
LI
For ADORATION all the ranks
Of angels yield eternal thanks,
And DAVID in the midst;
With God's good poor, which last and le...Read more of this...
by
Pope, Alexander
...nowing, not exact, but nice,
Form short Ideas; and offend in Arts
(As most in Manners) by a Love to Parts.
Some to Conceit alone their Taste confine,
And glitt'ring Thoughts struck out at ev'ry Line;
Pleas'd with a Work where nothing's just or fit;
One glaring Chaos and wild Heap of Wit;
Poets like Painters, thus, unskill'd to trace
The naked Nature and the living Grace,
With Gold and Jewels cover ev'ry Part,
And hide with Ornaments their Want of Art.
True Wit is Nat...Read more of this...
by
Lawrence, D. H.
...with the silence of death;
And what do I care though the very stones should cry me unreal, though the clouds
Shine in conceit of substance upon me, who am less than the rain.
Do I know the darkness within them? What are they but shrouds?
The clouds go down the sky with a wealthy ease
Casting a shadow of scorn upon me for my share in death; but I
Hold my own in the midst of them, darkling, defy
The whole of the day to extinguish the shadow I lift on the breeze.
Y...Read more of this...
by
Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...strate
What they had only snapped at and thereby
Made out of my best evidence no more
Than comfortable food for their conceit;
But patient wisdom frowned on argument,
With a side nod for silence, and I smoked
A series of incurable dry pipes
While Morgan fiddled, with obnoxious care,
Things that I wished he wouldn’t. Killigrew,
Drowsed with a fond abstraction, like an ass,
Lay blinking at me while he grinned and made
Remarks. The learned Plunket made remarks.<...Read more of this...
by
Bradstreet, Anne
...gs gone perpetually to last
67 And calls back months and years that long since fled.
68 It makes a man more aged in conceit
69 Than was Methuselah or's grand-sire great,
70 While of their persons and their acts his mind doth treat.
11
71 Sometimes in Eden fair he seems to be,
72 See glorious Adam there made Lord of all,
73 Fancies the Apple dangle on the Tree
74 That turn'd his Sovereign to a naked thrall,
75 Who like a miscreant's driven from that place
76 To get...Read more of this...
by
Gregory, Rg
...le and we'll take your cheque
again and again and again
it's the winners who fall in the bog
to win is to be preened - conceit
finds a little fluffy nest dear
to the feted heart and swells there
fed (for a foetal space) on all
the praisiest worms but in the nest
is a bloated thing that sucks (and chokes)
on hurt that has the knack of pecking
where there's malice - it grows two heads
winners by their nature soon become
winged and weighted - icarus begins
to prey upon their...Read more of this...
by
Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...he people, winning reverence.
But now much honour and much fame were lost."
So spake he, clouded with his own conceit,
And hid Excalibur the second time,
And so strode back slow to the wounded King.
Then spoke King Arthur, breathing heavily:
"What is it thou hast seen? or what hast heard?'
And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere:
"I heard the water lapping on the crag,
And the long ripple washing in the reeds."
To whom replied King Arthur, much in wrath:...Read more of this...
by
Keats, John
...dly did pray
For power to speak; but still the ruddy tide
Stifled his voice, and puls'd resolve away--
Fever'd his high conceit of such a bride,
Yet brought him to the meekness of a child:
Alas! when passion is both meek and wild!
VII.
So once more he had wak'd and anguished
A dreary night of love and misery,
If Isabel's quick eye had not been wed
To every symbol on his forehead high;
She saw it waxing very pale and dead,
And straight all flush'd; so, lisped tenderly,
"L...Read more of this...
by
Bishop, Elizabeth
...have you to give
commands and tell us how to live,
cry "Here!" and "Here!"
and wake us here where are
unwanted love, conceit and war?
The crown of red
set on your little head
is charged with all your fighting blood
Yes, that excrescence
makes a most virile presence,
plus all that vulgar beauty of iridescence
Now in mid-air
by two they fight each other.
Down comes a first flame-feather,
and one is flying,
with raging heroism defying
even the sensation of dying.
...Read more of this...
by
Ashbery, John
...is not sure of having seen
As darkness resumes. A perverse light whose
Imperative of subtlety dooms in advance its
Conceit to light up: unimportant but meant.
Francesco, your hand is big enough
To wreck the sphere, and too big,
One would think, to weave delicate meshes
That only argue its further detention.
(Big, but not coarse, merely on another scale,
Like a dozing whale on the sea bottom
In relation to the tiny, self-important ship
On the surface.) But you...Read more of this...
by
Frost, Robert
...
“Such a trouble!
Not but I’ve every reason not to care
What happens to him if it only takes
Some of the sanctimonious conceit
Out of one of those pious scalawags.”
“Nonsense to that! You want to see him safe.”
“You like the runt.”
“Don’t you a little?”
“Well,
I don’t like what he’s doing, which is what
You like, and like him for.”
“Oh, yes you do.
You like your fun as well as anyone;
Only you women have to put these airs on
To impress men. You’v...Read more of this...
by
Lowell, Amy
...led;
My orient porcelains contain them all.
Those Lowestoft pitchers against the wall
Hold a lighter kind of bright conceit;
And those old Saxe vases, out of the heat
On that lowest shelf beside the door,
Have a sort of Ideal, "couleur d'or".
Every castle of the air
Sleeps in the fine black grains, and there
Are seeds for every romance, or light
Whiff of a dream for a summer night.
I supply to every want and taste."
'Twas slowly said, in no great haste
He seem...Read more of this...
by
Wordsworth, William
...he and such as he First named these notes a melancholy strain: And many a poet echoes the conceit; Poet, who hath been building up the rhyme [Footnote 4: "Most musical, most melancholy." This passage in Milton possesses an excellence far superior to that of mere description: it is spoken in the character of the melancholy Man, and has therefore a dramatic propriety. The Author makes this remark, to ...Read more of this...
by
Lowell, Amy
...t! Tut! Give
me some ink --
`Bouquet de la Reine', what do you think?
Not the same receipt?
Now, Martin, put away your conceit.
Who will ever know?
`Extract of Nobility' -- excellent, since most of them are killed."
"But, Monsieur Antoine --"
"You are self-willed,
Martin. You need a salve
For your conscience, do you?
Very well, we'll halve
The compliments, also the pastes and dentifrices;
Send some to the Kings, and some to the Empresses.
`Oil of Bitter Almon...Read more of this...
by
Scott, Sir Walter
...e young Norman, heir of Armandave,
What time the sun arose on Vennachar's broad wave.
II.
Such fond conceit, half said, half sung,
Love prompted to the bridegroom's tongue.
All while he stripped the wild-rose spray,
His axe and bow beside him lay,
For on a pass 'twixt lake and wood
A wakeful sentinel he stood.
Hark!—on the rock a footstep rung,
And instant to his arms he sprung.
'Stand, or thou diest!—What, M...Read more of this...
by
Cowper, William
...ere it come to light,
In ev'ry cranny but the right.
Forth skipp'd the cat, not now replete
As erst with airy self-conceit,
Nor in her own fond apprehension
A theme for all the world's attention,
But modest, sober, cured of all
Her notions hyperbolical,
And wishing for a place of rest
Anything rather than a chest.
Then stepp'd the poet into bed,
With this reflection in his head:MORAL
Beware of too sublime a sense
Of your own worth and consequence.
The man who d...Read more of this...
by
Johnson, Samuel
...52 And feed with varied fools th' eternal jest:
53 Thou who couldst laugh where want enchain'd caprice,
54 Toil crush'd conceit, and man was of a piece;
55 Where wealth unlov'd without a mourner died;
56 And scarce a sycophant was fed by pride;
57 Where ne'er was known the form of mock debate,
58 Or seen a new-made mayor's unwieldy state;
59 Where change of fav'rites made no change of laws,
60 And senates heard before they judg'd a cause;
61 How wouldst thou shake at Britain'...Read more of this...
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