Get Your Premium Membership

Famous Excessive Poems by Famous Poets

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

See also:

by Cavafy, Constantine P
...Even if you cannot shape your life as you want it,
at least try this
as much as you can; do not debase it
in excessive contact with the world,
in the excessive movements and talk.

Do not debase it by taking it,
dragging it often and exposing it
to the daily folly
of relationships and associations,
until it becomes burdensome as an alien life....Read more of this...



by Keats, John
...and his wanderings all,
Until into the earth's deep maw he rush'd:
Then all its buried magic, till it flush'd
High with excessive love. "And now," thought he,
"How long must I remain in jeopardy
Of blank amazements that amaze no more?
Now I have tasted her sweet soul to the core
All other depths are shallow: essences,
Once spiritual, are like muddy lees,
Meant but to fertilize my earthly root,
And make my branches lift a golden fruit
Into the bloom of heaven: other light,...Read more of this...

by Nash, Ogden
...manic-depressive
You don't go anywhere where you won't be cheered up, and people say
"There, there!" if your bills are excessive.
But you stick around and work day and night and night and day with
your nose to the sawmill.
If you're nawmill.

Note: Dipsomaniac -- alcoholic...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...n pass 
Without my opening. Pensive here I sat 
Alone; but long I sat not, till my womb, 
Pregnant by thee, and now excessive grown, 
Prodigious motion felt and rueful throes. 
At last this odious offspring whom thou seest, 
Thine own begotten, breaking violent way, 
Tore through my entrails, that, with fear and pain 
Distorted, all my nether shape thus grew 
Transformed: but he my inbred enemy 
Forth issued, brandishing his fatal dart, 
Made to destroy. I fled, a...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...ou shadest 
The full blaze of thy beams, and, through a cloud 
Drawn round about thee like a radiant shrine, 
Dark with excessive bright thy skirts appear, 
Yet dazzle Heaven, that brightest Seraphim 
Approach not, but with both wings veil their eyes. 
Thee next they sang of all creation first, 
Begotten Son, Divine Similitude, 
In whose conspicuous countenance, without cloud 
Made visible, the Almighty Father shines, 
Whom else no creature can behold; on thee 
Impressed ...Read more of this...



by Milton, John
...s, and not repine, 
But live content, which is the calmest life: 
But pain is perfect misery, the worst 
Of evils, and, excessive, overturns 
All patience. He, who therefore can invent 
With what more forcible we may offend 
Our yet unwounded enemies, or arm 
Ourselves with like defence, to me deserves 
No less than for deliverance what we owe. 
Whereto with look composed Satan replied. 
Not uninvented that, which thou aright 
Believest so main to our success, I b...Read more of this...

by Watts, Isaac
...;
My strength is dried, my heart is broke,
And sinking in despair.

My spirits flag like with'ring grass
Burnt with excessive heat;
In secret groans my minutes pass,
And I forget to eat.

As on some lonely building's top
The sparrow tells her moan,
Far from the tents of joy and hope
I sit and grieve alone.

My soul is like a wilderness,
Where beasts of midnight howl;
There the sad raven finds her place,
And there the screaming owl.

Dark, dismal thoughts, and ...Read more of this...

by Petrarch, Francesco
.... Parrà forse ad alcun, che 'n lodar quella. HE INVITES THOSE TO WHOM HIS PRAISES SEEM EXCESSIVE TO BEHOLD THE OBJECT OF THEM.  Haply my style to some may seem too freeIn praise of her who holds my being's chain,Queen of her sex describing her to reign,Wise, winning, good, fair, noble,...Read more of this...

by Petrarch, Francesco
...> Spinse amor e dolor ove ir non debbe. REFLECTING THAT LAURA IS IN HEAVEN, HE REPENTS HIS EXCESSIVE GRIEF, AND IS CONSOLED.  Sorrow and Love encouraged my poor tongue,Discreet in sadness, where it should not go,To speak of her for whom I burn'd and sung,What, even were it true, 'twere wro...Read more of this...

by Robinson, Mary Darby
...our;
Soon, shall another clasp the beauteous boy;
Soon, shall a rival prove, in that gay bow'r,
The pleasing torture of excessive joy!
The Bee flies sicken'd from the sweetest flow'r;
The lightning's shaft, but dazzles to destroy!...Read more of this...

by Plath, Sylvia
...d clean cells between us,
Eight combs of yellow cups,
And the hive itself a teacup,
White with pink flowers on it,
With excessive love I enameled it

Thinking 'Sweetness, sweetness.'
Brood cells gray as the fossils of shells
Terrify me, they seem so old.
What am I buying, wormy mahogany?
Is there any queen at all in it?

If there is, she is old,
Her wings torn shawls, her long body
Rubbed of its plush ----
Poor and bare and unqueenly and even shameful.
I stand in ...Read more of this...

by Lawson, Henry
...ial oath!' 

So they swore him in, and found him sure of aim and light of heel, 
And his only fault, if any, lay in his excessive zeal; 
He was good at throwing metal, but we chronicle with pain 
That he jumped upon a victim, damaging the watch and chain, 
Ere the Bleeders had secured them; yet the captain of the push 
Swore a dozen oaths in favour of the stranger from the bush. 

Late next morn the captain, rising, hoarse and thirsty from his lair, 
Called the newly-feat...Read more of this...

by Edson, Russell
...the father.
 Sometimes his son was a rock.
 I realize that you have quite lost boundary, where no 
excess seems excessive, nor to where poverty roots hunger to 
need. But should you allow time to embrace you to its bosom 
of dust, that velvet sleep, then were you served even beyond 
your need; and desire in sate was properly spilling from its 
borders, said the father. 
 Then his son became the corner of a room.
 Don't don't, cried the father.
 And the...Read more of this...

by Spenser, Edmund
...y,
And eke with fatnesse swollen were his eyne,
And like a Crane his necke was long and fyne,
With which he swallowd up excessive feast,
For want whereof poore people oft did pyne;
And all the way, most like a brutish beast,
He spued up his gorge, that all did him deteast.

xxii


In greene vine leaves he was right fitly clad;
For other clothes he could not weare for heat,
And on his head an yvie girland had,
From under which fast trickled downe the sweat:
Still as he rod...Read more of this...

by Roethke, Theodore
...o death by the night watchman.

I suffered for young birds, for young rabbits caught in the mower,
My grief was not excessive.
For to come upon warblers in early May
Was to forget time and death:
How they filled the oriole's elm, a twittering restless cloud, all one morning,
And I watched and watched till my eyes blurred from the bird shapes, -- 
Cape May, Blackburnian, Cerulean, -- 
Moving, elusive as fish, fearless, 
Hanging, bunched like young fruit, bending the en...Read more of this...

by Gluck, Louise
...f the very poor.
They shall inherit the earth.

In her is the end of breeding.
Her boredom is exquisite and excessive.
She would like some one to speak to her,
And is almost afraid that I
 will commit that indiscretion....Read more of this...

by Hugo, Victor
...y hour 
 Near the mosque was so oppressive 
 That—forgetting a moment the eye of the Giaour— 
 I yielded to th' heat excessive. 
 
 SECOND BROTHER. 
 
 Gulnara, make answer! Whom, then, hast thou seen, 
 In a turban of white and a caftan of green? 
 
 THE SISTER. 
 
 Nay, he might have been there; but I muflled me so, 
 He could scarcely have seen my figure.— 
 But why to your sister thus dark do you grow? 
 What words to yourselves do you mutter thus lo...Read more of this...

by Herbert, George
...pearl, which God did hide 
On purpose from the ventrous wretch; 
That he might save his life, and also hers, 
Who with excessive pride 
Her own destruction and his danger wears. 

The subtle chymick can devest 
And strip the creature naked, till he find 
The callow principles within their nest: 
There he imparts to them his mind, 
Admitted to their bed-chamber, before 
They appear trim and drest 
To ordinary suitors at the door. 

What hath not man sought out and fou...Read more of this...

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Excessive poems.


Book: Shattered Sighs