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Best Famous Vilest Poems

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Written by William Shakespeare | Create an image from this poem

Sonnet 71

No longer mourn for me when I am dead
Then you shall hear the surly sullen bell
Give warning to the world that I am fled
From this vile world, with vilest worms to dwell:
Nay, if you read this line, remember not
The hand that writ it; for I love you so
That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot
If thinking on me then should make you woe.
O, if, I say, you look upon this verse
When I perhaps compounded am with clay,
Do not so much as my poor name rehearse.
But let your love even with my life decay,
Lest the wise world should look into your moan
And mock you with me after I am gone


Written by Anonymous | Create an image from this poem

Ode To Joy

Wild and fearful in his cavern
Hid the naked troglodyte,
And the homeless nomad wandered
Laying waste the fertile plain.
Menacing with spear and arrow
In the woods the hunter strayed ...
Woe to all poor wreteches stranded
On those cruel and hostile shores!

From the peak of high Olympus
Came the mother Ceres down,
Seeeking in those savage regions
Her lost daughter Prosperine.
But the Goddess found no refuge,
Found no kindly welcome there,
And no temple bearing witness
To the worship of the gods.

From the fields and from the vineyards
Came no fruit to deck the feasts,
Only flesh of blood-stained victims
Smouldered on the alter-fires,
And where'er the grieving goddess
Turns her melancholy gaze,
Sunk in vilest degradation
Man his loathsomeness displays.

Would he purge his soul from vileness
And attain to light and worth,
He must turn and cling forever
To his ancient Mother Earth.

Joy everlasting fostereth
The soul of all creation,
It is her secret ferment fires
The cup of life with flame.
'Tis at her beck the grass hath turned
Each blade toward the light
and solar systems have evolved
From chaos and dark night,
Filling the realms of boundless space
Beyond the sage's sight.

At bounteous nature's kindly breast,
All things that breath drink Joy,
And bird and beasts and creaping things
All follow where she leads.
Her gifts to man are friends in need,
The wreath, the foaming must,
To angels -- visions of God's throne,
To insects -- sensual lust. 
Written by Lucy Maud Montgomery | Create an image from this poem

The Watchman

 My Claudia, it is long since we have met, 
So kissed, so held each other heart to heart! 
I thought to greet thee as a conqueror comes, 
Bearing the trophies of his prowess home, 
But Jove hath willed it should be otherwise­
Jove, say I? Nay, some mightier stranger-god 
Who thus hath laid his heavy hand on me, 
No victor, Claudia, but a broken man 
Who seeks to hide his weakness in thy love. 

How beautiful thou art! The years have brought 
An added splendor to thy loveliness, 
With passion of dark eye and lip rose-red 
Struggling between its dimple and its pride. 
And yet there is somewhat that glooms between 
Thy love and mine; come, girdle me about 
With thy true arms, and pillow on thy breast 
This aching and bewildered head of mine; 
Here, where the fountain glitters in the sun 
Among the saffron lilies, I will tell­
If so that words will answer my desire­
The shameful fate that hath befallen me. 

Down in Jerusalem they slew a man, 
Or god­it may be that he was a god­
Those mad, wild Jews whom Pontius Pilate rules. 
Thou knowest Pilate, Claudia­ -- a vain man,
Too weak to govern such a howling horde
As those same Jews. This man they crucified.
I knew nought of him­had not heard his name
Until the day they dragged him to his death;
Then all tongues wagged about him and his deeds;
Some said that he had claimed to be their King,
Some that he had blasphemed their deity
'Twas certain he was poor and meanly born,
No warrior he, nor hero; and he taught
Doctrines that surely would upset the world;
And so they killed him to be rid of him­
Wise, very wise, if he were only man,
Not quite so wise if he were half a god! 

I know that strange things happened when he died­
There was a darkness and an agony,
And some were vastly frightened­not so I!
What cared I if that mob of reeking Jews
Had brought a nameless curse upon their heads ?
I had no part in that blood-guiltiness.
At least he died; and some few friends of his­
I think he had not very many friends­
Took him and laid him in a garden tomb.
A watch was set about the sepulchre,
Lest these, his friends, should hide him and proclaim
That he had risen as he had fore-told.
Laugh not, my Claudia. I laughed when I heard
The prophecy. I would I had not laughed! 

I, Maximus, was chosen for the guard
With all my trusty fellows. Pilate knew
I was a man who had no foolish heart
Of softness all unworthy of a man!
My eyes had looked upon a tortured slave
As on a beetle crushed beneath my tread;
I gloried in the splendid strife of war,
Lusting for conquest; I had won the praise
Of our stern general on a scarlet field;
Red in my veins the warrior passion ran,
For I had sprung from heroes, Roman born! 

That second night we watched before the tomb;
My men were merry; on the velvet turf,
Bestarred with early blossoms of the Spring,
They diced with jest and laughter; all around
The moonlight washed us like a silver lake,
Save where that silent, sealéd sepulchre
Was hung with shadow as a purple pall.
A faint wind stirred among the olive boughs­
Methinks I hear the sighing of that wind
In all sounds since, it was so dumbly sad;
But as the night wore on it died away
And all was deadly stillness; Claudia,
That stillness was most awful, as if some
Great heart had broken and so ceased to beat!
I thought of many things, but found no joy
In any thought, even the thought of thee;
The moon waned in the west and sickly grew 
Her light sucked from her in the breaking dawn­
Never was dawn so welcome as that pale, 
Faint glimmer in the cloudless, brooding sky! 

Claudia, how may I tell what came to pass? 
I have been mocked at when I told the tale 
For a crazed dreamer punished by the gods 
Because he slept on guard; but mock not thou! 
I could not bear it if thy lips should mock 
The vision dread of that Judean morn. 

Sudden the pallid east was all aflame 
With radiance that beat upon our eyes 
As from noonday sun; and then we saw 
Two shapes that were as the immortal gods 
Standing before the tomb; around me fell 
My men as dead; but I, though through my veins 
Ran a cold tremor never known before, 
Withstood the shock and saw one shining shape 
Roll back the stone; the whole world seemed ablaze, 
And through the garden came a rushing wind 
Thundering a paeon as of victory. 

Then that dead man came forth! Oh, Claudia, 
If thou coulds't but have seen the face of him! 
Never was such a conqueror! Yet no pride 
Was in it­nought but love and tenderness, 
Such as we Romans scoff at; and his eyes 
Bespake him royal. Oh, my Claudia, 
Surely he was no Jew but very god! 

Then he looked full upon me. I had borne 
Much staunchly, but that look I could not bear! 
What man may front a god and live? I fell 
Prone, as if stricken by a thunderbolt; 
And, though I died not, somewhat of me died
That made me man. When my long stupor passed 
I was no longer Maximus­I was 
A weakling with a piteous woman-soul, 
All strength and pride, joy and ambition gone­
My Claudia, dare I tell thee what foul curse 
Is mine because I looked upon a god? 

I care no more for glory; all desire
For conquest and for strife is gone from me,
All eagerness for war; I only care
To help and heal bruised beings, and to give
Some comfort to the weak and suffering.
I cannot even hate those Jews; my lips
Speak harshly of them, but within my heart
I feel a strange compassion; and I love
All creatures, to the vilest of the slaves
Who seem to me as brothers! Claudia,
Scorn me not for this weakness; it will pass­
Surely 'twill pass in time and I shall be
Maximus strong and valiant once again,
Forgetting that slain god! and yet­and yet­
He looked as one who could not be forgot!
Written by Alfred Lord Tennyson | Create an image from this poem

Amphion

 MY father left a park to me, 
But it is wild and barren, 
A garden too with scarce a tree, 
And waster than a warren: 
Yet say the neighbours when they call, 
It is not bad but good land, 
And in it is the germ of all 
That grows within the woodland. 

O had I lived when song was great 
In days of old Amphion, 
And ta'en my fiddle to the gate, 
Nor cared for seed or scion! 
And had I lived when song was great, 
And legs of trees were limber, 
And ta'en my fiddle to the gate, 
And fiddled in the timber! 

'Tis said he had a tuneful tongue, 
Such happy intonation, 
Wherever he sat down and sung 
He left a small plantation; 
Wherever in a lonely grove 
He set up his forlorn pipes, 
The gouty oak began to move, 
And flounder into hornpipes. 

The mountain stirr'd its bushy crown, 
And, as tradition teaches, 
Young ashes pirouetted down 
Coquetting with young beeches; 
And briony-vine and ivy-wreath 
Ran forward to his rhyming, 
And from the valleys underneath 
Came little copses climbing. 

The linden broke her ranks and rent 
The woodbine wreaths that bind her, 
And down the middle, buzz! she went 
With all her bees behind her: 
The poplars, in long order due, 
With cypress promenaded, 
The shock-head willows two and two 
By rivers gallopaded. 

Came wet-shod alder from the wave, 
Came yews, a dismal coterie; 
Each pluck'd his one foot from the grave, 
Poussetting with a sloe-tree: 
Old elms came breaking from the vine, 
The vine stream'd out to follow, 
And, sweating rosin, plump'd the pine 
From many a cloudy hollow. 

And wasn't it a sight to see, 
When, ere his song was ended, 
Like some great landslip, tree by tree, 
The country-side descended; 
And shepherds from the mountain-eaves 
Look'd down, half-pleased, half-frighten'd, 
As dash'd about the drunken leaves 
The random sunshine lighten'd! 

Oh, nature first was fresh to men, 
And wanton without measure; 
So youthful and so flexile then, 
You moved her at your pleasure. 
Twang out, my fiddle! shake the twigs' 
And make her dance attendance; 
Blow, flute, and stir the stiff-set sprigs, 
And scirrhous roots and tendons. 

'Tis vain ! in such a brassy age 
I could not move a thistle; 
The very sparrows in the hedge 
Scarce answer to my whistle; 
'Or at the most, when three-parts-sick 
With strumming and with scraping, 
A jackass heehaws from the rick, 
The passive oxen gaping. 

But what is that I hear ? a sound 
Like sleepy counsel pleading; 
O Lord !--'tis in my neighbour's ground, 
The modern Muses reading. 
They read Botanic Treatises, 
And Works on Gardening thro' there, 
And Methods of transplanting trees 
To look as if they grew there. 

The wither'd Misses! how they prose 
O'er books of travell'd seamen, 
And show you slips of all that grows 
From England to Van Diemen. 
They read in arbours clipt and cut, 
And alleys, faded places, 
By squares of tropic summer shut 
And warm'd in crystal cases. 

But these, tho' fed with careful dirt, 
Are neither green nor sappy; 
Half-conscious of the garden-squirt, 
The spindlings look unhappy. 
Better to me the meanest weed 
That blows upon its mountain, 
The vilest herb that runs to seed 
Beside its native fountain. 

And I must work thro' months of toil, 
And years of cultivation, 
Upon my proper patch of soil 
To grow my own plantation. 
I'll take the showers as they fall, 
I will not vex my bosom: 
Enough if at the end of all 
A little garden blossom.
Written by Robert Burns | Create an image from this poem

231. Epistle to Robert Graham Esq. of Fintry

 WHEN Nature her great master-piece design’d,
And fram’d her last, best work, the human mind,
Her eye intent on all the mazy plan,
She form’d of various parts the various Man.


 Then first she calls the useful many forth;
Plain plodding Industry, and sober Worth:
Thence peasants, farmers, native sons of earth,
And merchandise’ whole genus take their birth:
Each prudent cit a warm existence finds,
And all mechanics’ many-apron’d kinds.
Some other rarer sorts are wanted yet,
The lead and buoy are needful to the net:
The caput mortuum of gross desires
Makes a material for mere knights and squires;
The martial phosphorus is taught to flow,
She kneads the lumpish philosophic dough,
Then marks th’ unyielding mass with grave designs,
Law, physic, politics, and deep divines;
Last, she sublimes th’ Aurora of the poles,
The flashing elements of female souls.


 The order’d system fair before her stood,
Nature, well pleas’d, pronounc’d it very good;
But ere she gave creating labour o’er,
Half-jest, she tried one curious labour more.
Some spumy, fiery, ignis fatuus matter,
Such as the slightest breath of air might scatter;
With arch-alacrity and conscious glee,
(Nature may have her whim as well as we,
Her Hogarth-art perhaps she meant to show it),
She forms the thing and christens it—a Poet:
Creature, tho’ oft the prey of care and sorrow,
When blest to-day, unmindful of to-morrow;
A being form’d t’ amuse his graver friends,
Admir’d and prais’d-and there the homage ends;
A mortal quite unfit for Fortune’s strife,
Yet oft the sport of all the ills of life;
Prone to enjoy each pleasure riches give,
Yet haply wanting wherewithal to live;
Longing to wipe each tear, to heal each groan,
Yet frequent all unheeded in his own.
But honest Nature is not quite a Turk,
She laugh’d at first, then felt for her poor work:
Pitying the propless climber of mankind,
She cast about a standard tree to find;
And, to support his helpless woodbine state,
Attach’d him to the generous, truly great:
A title, and the only one I claim,
To lay strong hold for help on bounteous Graham.


 Pity the tuneful Muses’ hapless train,
Weak, timid landsmen on life’s stormy main!
Their hearts no selfish stern absorbent stuff,
That never gives—tho’ humbly takes enough;
The little fate allows, they share as soon,
Unlike sage proverb’d Wisdom’s hard-wrung boon:
The world were blest did bliss on them depend,
Ah, that “the friendly e’er should want a friend!”
Let Prudence number o’er each sturdy son,
Who life and wisdom at one race begun,
Who feel by reason and who give by rule,
(Instinct’s a brute, and sentiment a fool!)
Who make poor “will do” wait upon “I should”—
We own they’re prudent, but who feels they’re good?
Ye wise ones hence! ye hurt the social eye!
God’s image rudely etch’d on base alloy!
But come ye who the godlike pleasure know,
Heaven’s attribute distinguished—to bestow!
Whose arms of love would grasp the human race:
Come thou who giv’st with all a courtier’s grace;
FRIEND OF MY LIFE, true patron of my rhymes!
Prop of my dearest hopes for future times.
Why shrinks my soul half blushing, half afraid,
Backward, abash’d to ask thy friendly aid?
I know my need, I know thy giving hand,
I crave thy friendship at thy kind command;
But there are such who court the tuneful Nine—
Heavens! should the branded character be mine!
Whose verse in manhood’s pride sublimely flows,
Yet vilest reptiles in their begging prose.
Mark, how their lofty independent spirit
Soars on the spurning wing of injured merit!
Seek not the proofs in private life to find
Pity the best of words should be but wind!
So, to heaven’s gates the lark’s shrill song ascends,
But grovelling on the earth the carol ends.
In all the clam’rous cry of starving want,
They dun Benevolence with shameless front;
Oblige them, patronise their tinsel lays—
They persecute you all your future days!
Ere my poor soul such deep damnation stain,
My horny fist assume the plough again,
The pie-bald jacket let me patch once more,
On eighteenpence a week I’ve liv’d before.
Tho’, thanks to Heaven, I dare even that last shift,
I trust, meantime, my boon is in thy gift:
That, plac’d by thee upon the wish’d-for height,
Where, man and nature fairer in her sight,
My Muse may imp her wing for some sublimer flight.


Written by Victor Hugo | Create an image from this poem

The Swiss Mercenaries

 ("Lorsque le regiment des hallebardiers.") 
 
 {Bk. XXXI.} 


 When the regiment of Halberdiers 
 Is proudly marching by, 
 The eagle of the mountain screams 
 From out his stormy sky; 
 Who speaketh to the precipice, 
 And to the chasm sheer; 
 Who hovers o'er the thrones of kings, 
 And bids the caitiffs fear. 
 King of the peak and glacier, 
 King of the cold, white scalps— 
 He lifts his head, at that close tread, 
 The eagle of the Alps. 
 
 O shame! those men that march below— 
 O ignominy dire! 
 Are the sons of my free mountains 
 Sold for imperial hire. 
 Ah! the vilest in the dungeon! 
 Ah! the slave upon the seas— 
 Is great, is pure, is glorious, 
 Is grand compared with these, 
 Who, born amid my holy rocks, 
 In solemn places high, 
 Where the tall pines bend like rushes 
 When the storm goes sweeping by; 
 
 Yet give the strength of foot they learned 
 By perilous path and flood, 
 And from their blue-eyed mothers won, 
 The old, mysterious blood; 
 The daring that the good south wind 
 Into their nostrils blew, 
 And the proud swelling of the heart 
 With each pure breath they drew; 
 The graces of the mountain glens, 
 With flowers in summer gay; 
 And all the glories of the hills 
 To earn a lackey's pay. 
 
 Their country free and joyous— 
 She of the rugged sides— 
 She of the rough peaks arrogant 
 Whereon the tempest rides: 
 Mother of the unconquered thought 
 And of the savage form, 
 Who brings out of her sturdy heart 
 The hero and the storm: 
 Who giveth freedom unto man, 
 And life unto the beast; 
 Who hears her silver torrents ring 
 Like joy-bells at a feast; 
 
 Who hath her caves for palaces, 
 And where her châlets stand— 
 The proud, old archer of Altorf, 
 With his good bow in his hand. 
 Is she to suckle jailers? 
 Shall shame and glory rest, 
 Amid her lakes and glaciers, 
 Like twins upon her breast? 
 Shall the two-headed eagle, 
 Marked with her double blow, 
 Drink of her milk through all those hearts 
 Whose blood he bids to flow? 
 
 Say, was it pomp ye needed, 
 And all the proud array 
 Of courtly joust and high parade 
 Upon a gala day? 
 Look up; have not my valleys 
 Their torrents white with foam— 
 Their lines of silver bullion 
 On the blue hillocks of home? 
 Doth not sweet May embroider 
 My rocks with pearls and flowers? 
 Her fingers trace a richer lace 
 Than yours in all my bowers. 
 
 Are not my old peaks gilded 
 When the sun arises proud, 
 And each one shakes a white mist plume 
 Out of the thunder-cloud? 
 O, neighbor of the golden sky— 
 Sons of the mountain sod— 
 Why wear a base king's colors 
 For the livery of God? 
 O shame! despair! to see my Alps 
 Their giant shadows fling 
 Into the very waiting-room 
 Of tyrant and of king! 
 
 O thou deep heaven, unsullied yet, 
 Into thy gulfs sublime— 
 Up azure tracts of flaming light— 
 Let my free pinion climb; 
 Till from my sight, in that clear light, 
 Earth and her crimes be gone— 
 The men who act the evil deeds— 
 The caitiffs who look on. 
 Far, far into that space immense, 
 Beyond the vast white veil, 
 Where distant stars come out and shine, 
 And the great sun grows pale. 
 
 BP. ALEXANDER 


 




Written by Isaac Watts | Create an image from this poem

Hymn 152

 Sinai and Zion. 

Heb. 12:18ff 

Not to the terrors of the Lord,
The tempest, fire, and smoke;
Not to the thunder of that word
Which God on Sinai spoke;

But we are come to Zion's hill,
The city of our God,
Where milder words declare his will,
And spread his love abroad.

Behold th' innumerable host
Of angels clothed in light!
Behold the spirits of the just,
Whose faith is turned to sight!

Behold the blest assembly there
Whose names are writ in heav'n!
And God, the Judge of all, declares
Their vilest sins forgiv'n.

The saints on earth and all the dead
But one communion make;
All join in Christ their living Head,
And of his grace partake.

In such society as this
My weary soul would rest;
The man that dwells where Jesus is
Must be for ever blest.
Written by William Shakespeare | Create an image from this poem

Sonnet LXXI

 No longer mourn for me when I am dead
Then you shall hear the surly sullen bell
Give warning to the world that I am fled
From this vile world, with vilest worms to dwell:
Nay, if you read this line, remember not
The hand that writ it; for I love you so
That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot
If thinking on me then should make you woe.
O, if, I say, you look upon this verse
When I perhaps compounded am with clay,
Do not so much as my poor name rehearse.
But let your love even with my life decay,
Lest the wise world should look into your moan
And mock you with me after I am gone.
Written by Isaac Watts | Create an image from this poem

Psalm 12

 The saint's safety and hope in evil times.

Lord, if thou dost not soon appear,
Virtue and truth will fly away;
A faithful man amongst us here
Will scarce be found, if thou delay.

The whole discourse, when neighbors meet,
Is filled with trifles loose and vain;
Their lips are flattery and deceit,
And their proud language is profane.

But lips that with deceit abound
Shall not maintain their triumph long;
The God of vengeance will confound
The flattering and blaspheming tongue.

"Yet shall our words be free," they cry;
"Our tongues shall be controlled by none:
Where is the Lord will ask us why?
Or say our lips are not our own?"

The Lord, who sees the poor oppressed,
And hears th' oppressor's haughty strain,
Will rise to give his children rest,
Nor shall they trust his word in vain.

Thy word, O Lord, though often tried,
Void of deceit shall still appear;
Not silver, sev'n times purified
From dross and mixture, shines so clear.

Thy grace shall in the darkest hour
Defend the holy soul from harm;
Though when the vilest men have power,
On every side will sinners swarm.
Written by Isaac Watts | Create an image from this poem

Hymn 34 part 2

 None excluded from hope.

Rom. 1:16; 1 Cor. 1:24. 

Jesus, thy blessings are not few,
Nor is thy gospel weak;
Thy grace can melt the stubborn Jew,
And bow th' aspiring Greek.

Wide as the reach of Satan's rage
Doth thy salvation flow;
'Tis not confined to sex or age,
The lofty or the low.

While grace is offered to the prince,
The poor may take their share;
No mortal has a just pretence
To perish in despair

Be wise, ye men of strength and wit,
Nor boast your native powers;
But to his sovereign grace submit,
And glory shall be yours.

Come, all ye vilest sinners, come,
He'll form your souls anew;
His gospel and his heart have room
For rebels such as you.

His doctrine is almighty love;
There's virtue in his name
To turn the raven to a dove,
The lion to a lamb.

Book: Reflection on the Important Things