Famous Envy Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Envy poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous envy poems. These examples illustrate what a famous envy poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Emily Dickinson
I envy Seas, whereon He rides --
I envy Spokes of Wheels
Of Chariots, that Him convey --
I envy Crooked Hills
That gaze upon His journey --
How easy All can see
What is forbidden utterly
As Heaven -- unto me!
I envy Nests of Sparrows --
That dot His distant Eaves --
The wealthy Fly, upon His Pane --
The happy -- happy Leaves --
That just abroad His...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
While I am emulating Keats
My brother fabrics toilet seats,
The which, they say, are works of art,
Aesthetic features of the mart;
So exquisitely are they made
With plastic of a pastel shade,
Of topaz, ivory or rose,
Inviting to serene repose.
Rajahs I'm told have seats of gold,--
(They must, I fear, be very cold).
But Tom's have thermostatic heat,
With sympathy your grace to greet.
Like silver they...Read more of this...
by
Victor Hugo
Boaz, overcome with weariness, by torchlight
made his pallet on the threshing floor
where all day he had worked, and now he slept
among the bushels of threshed wheat.
The old man owned wheatfields and barley,
and though he was rich, he was still fair-minded.
No filth soured the sweetness of his well.
No hot iron of torture whitened in...Read more of this...
by
William Butler Yeats
I. Ancestral Houses
Surely among a rich man's flowering lawns,
Amid the rustle of his planted hills,
Life overflows without ambitious pains;
And rains down life until the basin spills,
And mounts more dizzy high the more it rains
As though to choose whatever shape it wills
And never stoop to a mechanical
Or servile shape, at others' beck and call.
Mere dreams, mere dreams! Yet Homer had...Read more of this...
by
John Dryden
All human things are subject to decay,
And, when Fate summons, monarchs must obey:
This Flecknoe found, who, like Augustus, young
Was call'd to empire, and had govern'd long:
In prose and verse, was own'd, without dispute
Through all the realms of Non-sense, absolute.
This aged prince now flourishing in peace,
And blest with issue of a large increase,
Worn out with business, did at length debate
To...Read more of this...
by
Alfred Lord Tennyson
I envy not in any moods
The captive void of noble rage,
The linnet born within the cage,
That never knew the summer woods:
I envy not the beast that takes
His license in the field of time,
Unfetter'd by the sense of crime,
To whom a conscience never wakes;
Nor, what may count itself as blest,
The heart that never plighted troth
But stagnates in the weeds...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
Although the Preacher be a bore,
The Atheist is even more.
I ain't religious worth a damn;
My views are reckoned to be broad;
And yet I shut up like a clam
When folks get figgerin' on God;
I'd hate my kids to think like me,
And though they leave me in the lurch,
I'm always mighty glad to see
My fam'ly trot to Church.
Although of books...Read more of this...
by
Victor Hugo
("N'ai-je pas pour toi, belle juive.")
{XII., Oct. 27, 1828.}
To please you, Jewess, jewel!
I have thinned my harem out!
Must every flirting of your fan
Presage a dying shout?
Grace for the damsels tender
Who have fear to hear your laugh,
For seldom gladness gilds your lips...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
An olive fire's a lovely thing;
Somehow it makes me think of Spring
As in my grate it over-spills
With dancing flames like daffodils.
They flirt and frolic, twist and twine,
The brassy fire-irons wink and shine. . . .
Leap gold, you flamelets! Laugh and sing:
An olive fire's a lovely thing.
An olive fire's a household shrine:
A crusty loaf, a jug of wine,
An apple and...Read more of this...
by
Mary Darby Robinson
HAIL! GODDESS of persuasive art!
The magic of whose tuneful tongue
Lulls to soft harmony the wand'ring heart
With fascinating song;
O, let me hear thy heav'n-taught strain,
As thro' my quiv'ring pulses steal
The mingling throbs of joy and pain,
Which only sensate minds can feel;
Ah ! let me taste the bliss supreme,
Which thy warm touch...Read more of this...
by
Henry Van Dyke
I envy every flower that blows
Along the meadow where she goes,
And every bird that sings to her,
And every breeze that brings to her
The fragrance of the rose.
I envy every poet's rhyme
That moves her heart at eventime,
And every tree that wears for her
Its brightest bloom, and bears for her
The fruitage of its prime.
I envy every...Read more of this...
by
Nazim Hikmet
I was born in 1902
I never once went back to my birthplace
I don't like to turn back
at three I served as a pasha's grandson in Aleppo
at nineteen as a student at Moscow Communist University
at forty-nine I was back in Moscow as the Tcheka Party's guest
and I've been a poet since I was fourteen
some people know all about plants some...Read more of this...
by
John Dryden
Well then; the promis'd hour is come at last;
The present age of wit obscures the past:
Strong were our sires; and as they fought they writ,
Conqu'ring with force of arms, and dint of wit;
Theirs was the giant race, before the Flood;
And thus, when Charles return'd, our empire stood.
Like Janus he the stubborn soil manur'd,
With rules of husbandry the rankness cur'd:
Tam'd...Read more of this...
by
Robert Francis
My mind matches this understand land.
Outdoors the pencilled tree, the wind-carved drift,
Indoors the constant fire, the careful thrift
Are facts that I accept and understand.
I have brought in red berries and green boughs-
Berries of black alder, boughs of pine.
They and the sunlight on them, both are mine.
I need no florist flowers in my house.
Having lived here the years that are...Read more of this...
by
Alfred Lord Tennyson
I envy not in any moods
The captive void of noble rage,
The linnet born within the cage,
That never knew the summer woods:
I envy not the beast that takes
His license in the field of time,
Unfetter'd by the sense of crime,
To whom a conscience never wakes;
Nor, what may count itself as blest,
The heart that never plighted troth
But stagnates in the weeds of...Read more of this...
by
Thomas Paine
No situation but may envy thee,
Holding such intimacy with the sea,
Many do that, but my delighted muse
Says, Neptune's fairest daughter is the Little Ouse....Read more of this...
by
Francesco Petrarch
SONNET CLXXII. Dolci ire, dolci sdegni e dolci paci. HE CONSOLES HIMSELF WITH THE THOUGHT THAT HE WILL BE ENVIED BY POSTERITY. Sweet scorn, sweet anger, and sweet misery,Forgiveness sweet, sweet burden, and sweet ill;Sweet accents that mine ear so sweetly thrill,That sweetly bland, now sweetly fierce can be.[Pg...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
Restrain thy envy of the things of this world if thou
wishest to be happy; break the bonds which enchain
thee to the good and the bad here below; live contented,
for the periodic movement of the heavens takes its course,
and this life will not be of long duration.
323...Read more of this...
by
Francesco Petrarch
SONNET C. Poi che 'l cammin m' è chiuso di mercede. THOUGH FAR FROM LAURA, SOLITARY AND UNHAPPY, ENVY STILL PURSUES HIM. Since mercy's door is closed, alas! to me,And hopeless paths my poor life separateFrom her in whom, I know not by what fate,The guerdon lay of all my constancy,My...Read more of this...
by
Sir Philip Sidney
Doubt you to whom my Muse these notes intendeth,
Which now my breast o'ercharged to music lendeth?
To you, to you, all song of praise is due;
Only in you my song begins and endeth.
Who hath the eyes which marry state with pleasure?
Who keeps the key of Nature's chiefest treasure?
To you, to you, all song of praise is due;
Only for you the...Read more of this...
by
Mary Darby Robinson
Deep in th' abyss where frantic horror bides,
In thickest mists of vapours fell,
Where wily Serpents hissing glare
And the dark Demon of Revenge resides,
At midnight's murky hour
Thy origin began:
Rapacious MALICE was thy sire;
Thy Dam the sullen witch, Despair;
Thy Nurse, insatiate Ire.
The FATES conspir'd their ills to twine,
About thy heart's infected shrine;
They gave thee each disastrous spell,
Each desolating...Read more of this...
by
Isaac Watts
v.1-15
C. M.
The cure of envy, fretfulness, and unbelief.
Why should I vex my soul, and fret
To see the wicked rise?
Or envy sinners waxing great
By violence and lies?
As flowery grass, cut down at noon,
Before the ev'ning fades,
So shall their glories vanish soon
In everlasting shades.
Then let me make the Lord my trust,
And practise all that's good;
So shall I dwell among the...Read more of this...
by
William Shakespeare
How oft, when thou, my music, music play'st,
Upon that blessed wood whose motion sounds
With thy sweet fingers, when thou gently sway'st
The wiry concord that mine ear confounds,
Do I envy those jacks that nimble leap
To kiss the tender inward of thy hand,
Whilst my poor lips, which should that harvest reap,
At the wood's boldness by thee blushing stand!
To be so...Read more of this...
by
Victor Hugo
("L'Avarice et l'Envie.")
{LE CONSERVATEUR LITÉRAIRE, 1820.}
Envy and Avarice, one summer day,
Sauntering abroad
In quest of the abode
Of some poor wretch or fool who lived that way—
You—or myself, perhaps—I cannot say—
Along the road, scarce heeding where it tended,
Their way in sullen, sulky silence wended;...Read more of this...
by
Mary Darby Robinson
DAME DOWSON, was a granny grey,
Who, three score years and ten,
Had pass'd her busy hours away,
In talking of the Men !
They were her theme, at home, abroad,
At wake, and by the winter fire,
Whether it froze, or blew, or thaw'd,
In sunshine or in shade, her ire
Was never calm'd; for still she made
Scandal her pleasure--and her trade!
A Grand-daughter DAME DOWSON had--
As...Read more of this...
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