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Famous Epitome Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry
...the land:
In the first rank of these did Zimri stand:
A man so various, that he seem'd to be
Not one, but all Mankind's Epitome.
Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong;
Was everything by starts, and nothing long:
But in the course of one revolving moon,
Was chemist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon:
Then all for women, painting, rhyming, drinking;
Besides ten thousand freaks that died in thinking.
Blest madman, who could every hour employ,
With something new to wish, o...Read more of this...
by Dryden, John



...is gone black out
Because the work had finished in that flare.
Soldier, scholar, horseman, he,
As 'twere all life's epitome.
What made us dream that he could comb grey hair?

 XII

I had thought, seeing how bitter is that wind
That shakes the shutter, to have brought to mind
All those that manhood tried, or childhood loved
Or boyish intellect approved,
With some appropriatc commentaty on each;
Until imagination brought
A fitter welcome; but a thought
Of that late deat...Read more of this...
by Yeats, William Butler
...Higgledy piggeldy
Archangel Rafael,
Speaking of Satan's re-
Bellion from God:

"Chap was decidedly
Turgiversational,
Given to lewdness and
Rodomontade."...Read more of this...
by Hecht, Anthony
...ed, to lie stationary.
Sleep is the result of his delusion that one must do as well
 as one can for oneself,
sleep--epitome of what is to him the end of life.
Demonstrate on him how the lady placed a forked stick
on the innocuous neck-sides of the dangerous southern snake.
One need not try to stir him up; his prune-shaped head
and alligator-eyes are not party to the joke.
Lifted and handled, he may be dangled like an eel
or set up on the forearm like a mouse;
...Read more of this...
by Moore, Marianne
...ll the mirrors I’ve made faces at. 
No, I shall never call you strange again: 
You are the young and inconvincible 
Epitome of all blind men since Adam.
May the blind lead the blind, if that be so? 
And we shall need no mirrors? You are saying 
What most I feared you might. But if the blind, 
Or one of them, be not so fortunate 
As to put out the eyes of recollection,
She might at last, without her meaning it, 
Lead on the other, without his knowing it, 
Until the...Read more of this...
by Robinson, Edwin Arlington



...n eternally
As vestal flames; the North-wind, he
Shall strike his frost-stretched wings, dissolve, and fly
This Etna in epitome.

Dropping December shall come weeping in,
Bewail th' usurping of his reign;
But when in show'rs of old Greek we begin,
Shall cry he hath his crown again!

Night as clear Hesper shall our tapers whip
From the light casements where we play,
And the dark hag from her black mantle strip,
And stick there everlasting day.

Thus richer than untempt...Read more of this...
by Lovelace, Richard

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry