Famous Edifice Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Edifice poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous edifice poems. These examples illustrate what a famous edifice poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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...ter m
the rumoured whore redeemed – the partner siamesed
into the one flesh – sharing the equal tragic tether
the whole edifice of the holy roman church teased
into collapse – virginal rose snapped at the stem
not that it seemed to make a difference – the vatican
still had its glory years ahead (its gory inquisitions)
da vinci stayed honoured in the breeches the word advanced
though its priests wore skirts – the brutality of man
multiplied its converts (scientifically enhanc...Read more of this...
by
Gregory, Rg
...ensheathe.
Then mounts a palace, then the air vibrates--the vision flees.
Confounded to its base, the fearful cloudy edifice
Ruins immense in mounded wrack;
Afar the fragments strew the sky, and each envermeiled cone
Hangeth, peak downward, overhead, like mountains overthrown
When the earthquake heaves its hugy back.
These vapors, with their leaden, golden, iron, bronzèd glows,
Where the hurricane, the waterspout, thunder, and hell repose,
Muttering hoarse dreams o...Read more of this...
by
Hugo, Victor
...igh original festivals, operas,
lecturers,
preachers;
Thee in thy ultimata, (the preparations only now completed—the edifice on sure
foundations
tied,)
Thee in thy pinnacles, intellect, thought—thy topmost rational joys—thy love,
and
godlike aspiration,
In thy resplendent coming literati—thy full-lung’d orators—thy sacerdotal
bards—kosmic savans,
These! these in thee, (certain to come,) to-day I prophecy.
5
Land tolerating all—accepting all—not for the good alone—...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...perish'd?"--"Look!" the sage replied,
"Dost thou not mark a gleaming through the tide,
Of divers brilliances? 'tis the edifice
I told thee of, where lovely Scylla lies;
And where I have enshrined piously
All lovers, whom fell storms have doom'd to die
Throughout my bondage." Thus discoursing, on
They went till unobscur'd the porches shone;
Which hurryingly they gain'd, and enter'd straight.
Sure never since king Neptune held his state
Was seen such wonder underneath the star...Read more of this...
by
Keats, John
...the swift Partitions
Of the awful Sea --
Babble of the Happy
Cavil of the Bold
Hoary the Fruition
But the Sea is old
Edifice of Ocean
Thy tumultuous Rooms
Suit me at a venture
Better than the Tombs...Read more of this...
by
Dickinson, Emily
...Beauty beckoned and where Strength pursued.
II
There was a time when I thought much of Fame,
And laid the golden edifice to be
That in the clear light of eternity
Should fitly house the glory of my name.
But swifter than my fingers pushed their plan,
Over the fair foundation scarce begun,
While I with lovers dallied in the sun,
The ivy clambered and the rose-vine ran.
And now, too late to see my vision, rise,
In place of golden pinnacles and towers,
Only s...Read more of this...
by
Seeger, Alan
...are the comb and drain from thence
Its dark, full-flavoured spoils:
For he must squeeze to wreck the beautiful
Frail edifice. Not otherwise he sacks
Those many-chambered palaces of wax.
Then let a choice of every kind be made,
And, labelled, set upon your storehouse racks —
Of Hawthorn-honey that of almond smacks:
The luscious Lime-tree-honey, green as jade:
Pale Willow-honey, hived by the first rover:
That delicate honey culled
From Apple-blossom, that of sunlig...Read more of this...
by
Armstrong, Martin
...od-side and feedeth on the cressies.
Let Zorobabel bless with the Wasp, who is the Lord's architect, and buildeth his edifice in armour.
Let Jehu bless with the Hornet, who is the soldier of the Lord to extirpate abomination and to prepare the way of peace.
Let Mattithiah bless with the Bat, who inhabiteth the desolations of pride and flieth amongst the tombs.
Let Elias which is the innocency of the Lord rejoice with the Dove.
Let Asaph rejoice with the Nightingale ...Read more of this...
by
Smart, Christopher
...he ministers of the Devil set the hewer of wood over the head of God's free Man.
For this inverting God's good order, edifice and edification, and appointing place, where the Lord has not appointed.
For the Ethiopian question is already solved in that the Blacks are the children of Cain.
For the phenomenon of the horizontal moon is the truth -- she appears bigger in the horizon because she actually is so.
For it was said of old 'can the Ethiopian change his skin?' the...Read more of this...
by
Smart, Christopher
...Just as He spoke it from his Hands
This Edifice remain --
A Turret more, a Turret less
Dishonor his Design --
According as his skill prefer
It perish, or endure --
Content, soe'er, it ornament
His absent character....Read more of this...
by
Dickinson, Emily
...ured forth the glow of heaven,
And yet it mirrors back each thing
Far fairer than to it 'twas given.
VII.
For ages an edifice here has been found,
It is not a dwelling, it is not a Pane;
A horseman for hundreds of days may ride round,
Yet the end of his journey he ne'er can attain.
Full many a century o'er it has passed,
The might of the storm and of time it defies!
Neath the rainbow of Heaven stands free to the last,--
In the ocean it dips, and soars up to the skies.
It ...Read more of this...
by
Schiller, Friedrich von
...gnificence, who built
So spacious, and his line stretched out so far;
That Man may know he dwells not in his own;
An edifice too large for him to fill,
Lodged in a small partition; and the rest
Ordained for uses to his Lord best known.
The swiftness of those circles attribute,
Though numberless, to his Omnipotence,
That to corporeal substances could add
Speed almost spiritual: Me thou thinkest not slow,
Who since the morning-hour set out from Heaven
Where God resid...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...noblest architects,
With gilded battlements, conspicuous far,
Turrets, and terraces, and glittering spires.
Many a fair edifice besides, more like
Houses of gods—so well I have disposed
My aerie microscope—thou may'st behold,
Outside and inside both, pillars and roofs
Carved work, the hand of famed artificers
In cedar, marble, ivory, or gold.
Thence to the gates cast round thine eye, and see
What conflux issuing forth, or entering in:
Praetors, proconsuls to their provinces
...Read more of this...
by
Milton, John
...he portraits of the past users also,
The primal patient mechanics, the architects and engineers,
The far-off Assyrian edifice and Mizra edifice,
The Roman lictors preceding the consuls,
The antique European warrior with his axe in combat,
The uplifted arm, the clatter of blows on the helmeted head,
The death-howl, the limpsey tumbling body, the rush of friend and foe thither,
The siege of revolted lieges determin’d for liberty,
The summons to surrender, the battering a...Read more of this...
by
Whitman, Walt
...thin seconds, that monument.
The blood runs underground yet brings forth a tower.
A multitude should gather for such an edifice.
For a miracle one stands in line and throws confetti.
Surely The Press is here looking for headlines.
Surely someone should carry a banner on the sidewalk.
If a bridge is constructed doesn't the mayor cut a ribbon?
If a phenomenon arrives shouldn't the Magi come bearing gifts?
Yesterday was the day I bore gifts for your gift
and came from the valley...Read more of this...
by
Sexton, Anne
...eye her form behold.
With youthful and self-pleasing bliss,
He lends the spheres his harmony,
And, if he praise earth's edifice,
'Tis for its wondrous symmetry.
In all that now around him breathes,
Proportion sweet is ever rife;
And beauty's golden girdle wreathes
With mildness round his path through life;
Perfection blest, triumphantly,
Before him in your works soars high;
Wherever boisterous rapture swells,
Wherever silent sorrow flees,
Where pensive contemplation dwells,...Read more of this...
by
Schiller, Friedrich von
...lilies, and submarine
toadstools, slide each on the other.
All
external
marks of abuse are present on this
defiant edifice—
all the physical features of
ac-
cident—lack
of cornice, dynamite grooves, burns, and
hatchet strokes, these things stand
out on it; the chasm-side is
dead.
Repeated
evidence ahs proved that it can live
on what can not revive
its youth. The sea grows old in it....Read more of this...
by
Moore, Marianne
...o to the memory of the gift that graced
Her hand, her graceless hand more grace bestows.
45
In this neglected, ruin'd edifice
Of works unperfected and broken schemes,
Where is the promise of my early dreams,
The smile of beauty and the pearl of price?
No charm is left now that could once entice
Wind-wavering fortune from her golden streams,
And full in flight decrepit purpose seems,
Trailing the banner of his old device.
Within the house a frore and numbing air
Has chill'd...Read more of this...
by
Bridges, Robert Seymour
...to do with it, poor Ma jest couldn't think.
Then Nature seemed to give the clue, as down the garden lot
She spied the edifice that graced a solitary spot,
Their Palace of Necessity, the family joy and pride,
Enshrined in morning-glory vine, with graded seats inside;
Jest like that cabin Goldylocks found occupied by three,
But in this case B-E-A-R was spelt B-A-R-E----
A tiny seat for Baby Bare, a medium for Ma,
A full-sized section sacred to the Bare of Grandpapa.
Well, M...Read more of this...
by
Service, Robert William
...The way Hope builds his House
It is not with a sill --
Nor Rafter -- has that Edifice
But only Pinnacle --
Abode in as supreme
This superficies
As if it were of Ledges smit
Or mortised with the Laws --...Read more of this...
by
Dickinson, Emily
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