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Famous Purple Poems by Famous Poets

These are examples of famous Purple poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous purple poems. These examples illustrate what a famous purple poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).

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by Yeats, William Butler
...hird of his family, fashioned it
Five hundred years ago, about it lie
Flowers from I know not what embroidery -
Heart's purple - and all these I set
For emblems of the day against the tower
Emblematical of the night,
And claim as by a soldier's right
A charter to commit the crime once more.

My Soul. Such fullness in that quarter overflows
And falls into the basin of the mind
That man is stricken deaf and dumb and blind,
For intellect no longer knows
Is from the Ought...Read more of this...



by Pope, Alexander
...ught, and still
Appears more decent as more suitable;
A vile Conceit in pompous Words exprest,
Is like a Clown in regal Purple drest;
For diff'rent Styles with diff'rent Subjects sort,
As several Garbs with Country, Town, and Court.
Some by Old Words to Fame have made Pretence;
Ancients in Phrase, meer Moderns in their Sense!
Such labour'd Nothings, in so strange a Style,
Amaze th'unlearn'd, and make the Learned Smile.
Unlucky, as Fungoso in the Play,
These Sparks wit...Read more of this...

by Wilde, Oscar
...r of bold Poseidon's ravishment,
And loose their girdles, with shy timorous eyes,
Lest from the surf his azure arms and purple beard should rise.

On this side and on that a rocky cave,
Hung with the yellow-belled laburnum, stands
Smooth is the beach, save where some ebbing wave
Leaves its faint outline etched upon the sands,
As though it feared to be too soon forgot
By the green rush, its playfellow, - and yet, it is a spot

So small, that the inconstant butterfly
Could ...Read more of this...

by Dickinson, Emily
...nted sweetest
By those who ne'er succeed.
To comprehend a nectar
Requires sorest need.

Not one of all the purple Host
Who took the Flag today
Can tell the definition
So clear of Victory

As he defeated—dying—
On whose forbidden ear
The distant strains of triumph
Burst agonized and clear!

84

Her breast is fit for pearls,
But I was not a "Diver"—
Her brow is fit for thrones
But I have not a crest.
Her heart is fit for home—
I—a Sparrow—build...Read more of this...

by Wilde, Oscar
...d woodland empery, and when the lingering rose hath shed

Red leaf by leaf its folded panoply,
And pansies closed their purple-lidded eyes,
Chrysanthemums from gilded argosy
Unload their gaudy scentless merchandise,
And violets getting overbold withdraw
From their shy nooks, and scarlet berries dot the leafless haw.

O happy field! and O thrice happy tree!
Soon will your queen in daisy-flowered smock
And crown of flower-de-luce trip down the lea,
Soon will the lazy shephe...Read more of this...



by Alighieri, Dante
...ound a hot spring boiling, and a way, 
 Dark, narrow, and steep, that down beside it goes, 
 By which we clambered. Purple-black the pond 
 Beneath it, widening to a marsh that spreads 
 Far out, and struggling in that slime malign 
 Were muddied shades, that not with hands, heads, 
 And teeth and feet besides, contending tore, 
 And maimed each other in beast-like rage. 

 My guide 
 Expounded, "Those whom anger overbore 
 On earth, behold ye. Mark the further si...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...oyant trunk, 
A massy fragment smote it, and it sunk: 
It rose again, but indistinct to view, 
And left the waters of a purple hue, 
Then deeply disappear'd: the horseman gazed 
Till ebb'd the latest eddy it had raised; 
Then turning, vaulted on his pawing steed, 
And instant spurr'd him into panting speed. 
His face was mask'd — the features of the dead, 
If dead it were, escaped the observer's dread; 
But if in sooth a star its bosom bore, 
Such is the badge that knight...Read more of this...

by Keats, John
...ull of the warm South! 15 
Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene, 
With beaded bubbles winking at the brim, 
And purple-stain¨¨d mouth; 
That I might drink, and leave the world unseen, 
And with thee fade away into the forest dim: 20 

Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget 
What thou among the leaves hast never known, 
The weariness, the fever, and the fret 
Here, where men sit and hear each other groan; 
Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last grey hairs, 25 
...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...hing round 
About her glowed, oft stooping to support 
Each flower of slender stalk, whose head, though gay 
Carnation, purple, azure, or specked with gold, 
Hung drooping unsustained; them she upstays 
Gently with myrtle band, mindless the while 
Herself, though fairest unsupported flower, 
From her best prop so far, and storm so nigh. 
Nearer he drew, and many a walk traversed 
Of stateliest covert, cedar, pine, or palm; 
Then voluble and bold, now hid, now seen, 
Among...Read more of this...

by Wilde, Oscar
...omforted,
The rose that burgeons on the climbing briar,
The crocus-bed, (that seems a moon of fire
Round-girdled with a purple marriage-ring);
And all the flowers of our English Spring,
Fond snowdrops, and the bright-starred daffodil.
Up starts the lark beside the murmuring mill,
And breaks the gossamer-threads of early dew;
And down the river, like a flame of blue,
Keen as an arrow flies the water-king,
While the brown linnets in the greenwood sing.
A year ago! - it ...Read more of this...

by Cook, Eliza
...pass over, and I shall be there.

Cities of splendour, where palace and gate,
Where the marble of strength and the purple of state ;
Where the mart and arena, the olive and vine,
Once flourished in glory ; oh ! are ye not mine ?
Go look for famed Carthage, and I shall be found
In the desolate ruin and weed-covered mound ;
And the slime of my trailing discovers my home,
'Mid the pillars of Tyre and the temples of Rome.

I am sacredly sheltered and daintily fed
Where t...Read more of this...

by Chesterton, G K
...ss of love and war
That like yourself, goes on."

O go you onward; where you are
Shall honour and laughter be,
Past purpled forest and pearled foam,
God's winged pavilion free to roam,
Your face, that is a wandering home,
A flying home for me.

Ride through the silent earthquake lands,
Wide as a waste is wide,
Across these days like deserts, when
Pride and a little scratching pen
Have dried and split the hearts of men,
Heart of the heroes, ride.

Up through an emp...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...is mute; 
Where the tints of the earth, and the hues of the sky, 
In colour though varied, in beauty may vie, 
And the purple of Ocean is deepest in dye; 
Where the virgins are soft as the roses they twine, 
And all, save the spirit of man, is divine? 
'Tis the clime of the East; 'tis the land of the Sun — 
Can he smile on such deeds as his children have done? [2] 
Oh! wild as the accents of lovers' farewell 
Are the hearts which they bear, and the tales which they tell....Read more of this...

by Masefield, John
...ay at turnip picking, 
Your hearts too fat for plough or ricking.

"And you whom luck taught French and Greek 
Have purple flaps on either cheek, 
A stately house, and time for knowledge, 
And gold to send your sons to college, 
That pleasant place, where getting learning 
Is also key to money earning. 
But quite your damndest want of grace 
Is what you do to save your face; 
The way you sit astride the gates 
By padding wages out of rates; 
Your Christmas gifts of sh...Read more of this...

by Scott, Sir Walter
...nes it showed.
     XI.

     The western waves of ebbing day
     Rolled o'er the glen their level way;
     Each purple peak, each flinty spire,
     Was bathed in floods of living fire.
     But not a setting beam could glow
     Within the dark ravines below,
     Where twined the path in shadow hid,
     Round many a rocky pyramid,
     Shooting abruptly from the dell
     Its thunder-splintered pinnacle;
     Round many an insulated mass,
     The native b...Read more of this...

by Blake, William
...in clouds of smoke, and now we saw, it was the
head of Leviathan. his forehead was divided into streaks of green
& purple like those on a tygers forehead: soon we saw his mouth &
red gills hang just above the raging foam tinging the black deep
with beams of blood, advancing toward [PL 19] us with all the
fury of a spiritual existence.
My friend the Angel climb'd up from his station into the mill;
I remain'd alone, & then this appearance was no more, but I found
mysel...Read more of this...

by Poe, Edgar Allan
...maiden whom the angels name Lenore: 
Nameless here for evermore. 

And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain 
Thrilled me¡ªfilled me with fantastic terrors never felt before; 
So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating 15 
"'T is some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door, 
Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door: 
This it is and nothing more." 

Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating th...Read more of this...

by Schiller, Friedrich von
...Hail to thee, mountain beloved, with thy glittering purple-dyed summit!
Hail to thee also, fair sun, looking so lovingly on!
Thee, too, I hail, thou smiling plain, and ye murmuring lindens,
Ay, and the chorus so glad, cradled on yonder high boughs;
Thee, too, peaceably azure, in infinite measure extending
Round the dusky-hued mount, over the forest so green,--
Round about me, who now from my chamber's confine...Read more of this...

by Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...and a pleasure hid
In melancholy gloom) the pinnace passed;
By many a star-surrounded pyramid
Of icy crag cleaving the purple sky,
And caverns yawning round unfathomably.

The silver noon into that winding dell,
With slanted gleam athwart the forest-tops,
Tempered like golden evening, feebly fell;
A green and glowing light, like that which drops
From folded lilies in which glow-worms dwell
When Earth over her face Night's mantle wraps;
Between the severed mountains lay o...Read more of this...

by Akhmatova, Anna
...br>



x x x

Oh, this was a cold day
In Peter's wonderful town!
The shadow grew dense, and the sundown
Like purple fire lay.

Let him not want my eyes fair
Prophetic and never-changing
All life long verse he'll be catching -
My conceited lips' empty prayer.



x x x

This way I prayed: "Slake the dumb thirst
Of singing with a sweet libation!"
But to the earthling of the earth
There can be no liberation.
Like smoke from sacrifice, that ...Read more of this...

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