Famous Gaudy Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Love And Madness

by Thomas Campbell
 Hark ! from the battlements of yonder tower
The solemn bell has tolled the midnight hour !
Roused from drear visions of distempered sleep,
Poor Broderick wakes—in solitude to weep !

"Cease, Memory; cease (the friendless mourner cried)
To probe the bosom too severely tried !
Oh ! ever cease, my pensive thoughts, to stray
Through tie bright fields of Fortune's better day,
When youthful Hope, the...Read more of this...

A Farewel (To Worldly Joys.)

by Anne Killigrew
 FArewel ye Unsubstantial Joyes, 
Ye Gilded Nothings, Gaudy Toyes, 
Too long ye have my Soul misled, 
Too long with Aiery Diet fed: 
But now my Heart ye shall no more
Deceive, as you have heretofore: 
For when I hear such Sirens sing, 
Like Ithaca's fore-warned King, 
With prudent Resolution I
Will so my Will and Fancy tye, 
That stronger to the...Read more of this...

Sonnet XXX: Oer the Tall Cliff

by Mary Darby Robinson
 O'er the tall cliff that bounds the billowy main
Shad'wing the surge that sweeps the lonely strand,
While the thin vapours break along the sand,
Day's harbinger unfolds the liquid plain.
The rude Sea murmurs, mournful as the strain
That love-lorn minstrels strike with trembling hand,
While from their green beds rise the Syren band
With tongues aerial to repeat my pain!
The vessel rocks beside the...Read more of this...

The Widows Home

by Mary Darby Robinson
 Close on the margin of a brawling brook
That bathes the low dell's bosom, stands a Cot;
O'ershadow'd by broad Alders. At its door
A rude seat, with an ozier canopy
Invites the weary traveller to rest.
'Tis a poor humble dwelling; yet within,
The sweets of joy domestic, oft have made
The long hour not unchearly, while the Moor
Was covered with deep snow, and the...Read more of this...

All Alone

by Mary Darby Robinson
 I. 

Ah! wherefore by the Church-yard side,
Poor little LORN ONE, dost thou stray?
Thy wavy locks but thinly hide
The tears that dim thy blue-eye's ray;
And wherefore dost thou sigh, and moan,
And weep, that thou art left alone?


II. 

Thou art not left alone, poor boy,
The Trav'ller stops to hear thy tale;
No heart, so hard, would thee annoy!
For tho' thy mother's cheek...Read more of this...

The Division Of Parts

by Anne Sexton
 1.
Mother, my Mary Gray,
once resident of Gloucester
and Essex County,
a photostat of your will
arrived in the mail today.
This is the division of money.
I am one third
of your daughters counting my bounty
or I am a queen alone
in the parlor still,
eating the bread and honey.
It is Good Friday.
Black birds pick at my window sill.
Your coat in my closet,
your bright stones on my...Read more of this...

The Bee and the Butterfly

by Mary Darby Robinson
 UPON a garden's perfum'd bed 
With various gaudy colours spread, 
Beneath the shelter of a ROSE 
A BUTTERFLY had sought repose; 
Faint, with the sultry beams of day, 
Supine the beauteous insect lay. 

A BEE, impatient to devour
The nectar sweets of ev'ry flow'r, 
Returning to her golden store, 
A weight of fragrant treasure bore; 
With envious eye, she mark'd...Read more of this...

369. Song—My Collier Laddie

by Robert Burns
 WHARE live ye, my bonie lass?
 And tell me what they ca’ ye;
My name, she says, is mistress Jean,
 And I follow the Collier laddie.
 My name, she says, &c.


See you not yon hills and dales
 The sun shines on sae brawlie;
They a’ are mine, and they shall be thine,
 Gin ye’ll leave your Collier laddie.
 They a’ are...Read more of this...

A Pastoral Dialogue

by Anne Killigrew
 Dorinda. SAbæan Perfumes fragrant Roses bring, 
With all the Flowers that Paint the gaudy Spring: 
Scatter them all in young Alexis's way, 
With all that's sweet and (like himself) that's Gay. 
 Alexis. Immortal Laurels and as lasting Praise, 
Crown the divine Dorinda's matchless Laies: 
May all Hearts stoop, where mine would gladly yield, 
Had not Lycoris prepossest the...Read more of this...

A Farewel To America to Mrs. S. W

by Phillis Wheatley
 I.
ADIEU, New-England's smiling meads,
Adieu, the flow'ry plain:
I leave thine op'ning charms, O spring,
And tempt the roaring main.

II.
In vain for me the flow'rets rise,
And boast their gaudy pride,
While here beneath the northern skies
I mourn for health deny'd.

III.
Celestial maid of rosy hue,
O let me feel thy reign!
I languish till thy face I view,
Thy vanish'd joys regain.

IV.
Susanna mourns, nor can I bear
To...Read more of this...

Frederick Douglass

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
 When it is finally ours, this freedom, this liberty, this beautiful 
and terrible thing, needful to man as air, 
usable as earth; when it belongs at last to all, 
when it is truly instinct, brain matter, diastole, systole, 
reflex action; when it is finally won; when it is more 
than the gaudy mumbo jumbo of politicians:
this man, this Douglass,...Read more of this...

218. Song—Talk of him that's Far Awa

by Robert Burns
 MUSING on the roaring ocean,
 Which divides my love and me;
Wearying heav’n in warm devotion,
 For his weal where’er he be.


Hope and Fear’s alternate billow
 Yielding late to Nature’s law,
Whispering spirits round my pillow,
 Talk of him that’s far awa.


Ye whom sorrow never wounded,
 Ye who never shed a tear,
Care-untroubled, joy-surrounded,
 Gaudy day to you is dear.


Gentle night, do...Read more of this...

The Bishop Orders His Tomb At Saint Praxeds Church

by Robert Browning
 Vanity, saith the preacher, vanity!
Draw round my bed: is Anselm keeping back?
Nephews -- sons mine -- ah God, I know not! Well --
She, men would have to be your mother once,
Old Gandolf envied me, so fair she was!
What's done is done, and she is dead beside,
Dead long ago, and I am Bishop since,
And as she died so must we...Read more of this...

470. Song—She says she loes me best of a'

by Robert Burns
 SAE flaxen were her ringlets,
 Her eyebrows of a darker hue,
Bewitchingly o’er-arching
 Twa laughing e’en o’ lovely blue;
Her smiling, sae wyling.
 Wad make a wretch forget his woe;
What pleasure, what treasure,
 Unto these rosy lips to grow!
Such was my Chloris’ bonie face,
 When first that bonie face I saw;
And aye my Chloris’ dearest charm—
 She says, she lo’es me...Read more of this...

A Hymn for Christmas Day

by Thomas Chatterton
 Almighty Framer of the Skies! 
O let our pure devotion rise, 
Like Incense in thy Sight! 
Wrapt in impenetrable Shade 
The Texture of our Souls were made 
Till thy Command gave light. 
The Sun of Glory gleam'd the Ray, 
Refin'd the Darkness into Day, 
And bid the Vapours fly; 
Impell'd by his eternal Love 
He left his Palaces above...Read more of this...

Architectural Masks

by Thomas Hardy
 I

There is a house with ivied walls, 
And mullioned windows worn and old, 
And the long dwellers in those halls 
Have souls that know but sordid calls, 
And dote on gold.

II

In a blazing brick and plated show 
Not far away a 'villa' gleams, 
And here a family few may know, 
With book and pencil, viol and bow, 
Lead inner...Read more of this...

Home Thoughts From Abroad

by Robert Browning
 Oh, to be in England
Now that April's there,
And whoever wakes in England
Sees, some morning, unaware,
That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf
Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,
While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough
In England—now!

And after April, when May follows,
And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows!
Hark, where my blossomed pear-tree in the hedge
Leans to the field...Read more of this...

Why Did I Laugh Tonight? No Voice Will Tell

by John Keats
 Why did I laugh tonight? No voice will tell:
No God, no Demon of severe response,
Deigns to reply from Heaven or from Hell.
Then to my human heart I turn at once.
Heart! Thou and I are here, sad and alone;
I say, why did I laugh? O mortal pain!
O Darkness! Darkness! ever must I moan,
To question Heaven and Hell and Heart in...Read more of this...

Sonnet XLIV: Here Droops the Muse

by Mary Darby Robinson
 Here droops the muse! while from her glowing mind,
Celestial Sympathy, with humid eye,
Bids the light Sylph capricious Fancy fly,
Time's restless wings with transient flowr's to bind!
For now, with folded arms and head inclin'd,
Reflection pours the deep and frequent sigh,
O'er the dark scroll of human destiny,
Where gaudy buds and wounding thorns are twin'd.
O! Sky-born VIRTUE! sacred is thy name!
And though...Read more of this...

Second Ode to the Nightingale

by Mary Darby Robinson
 BLEST be thy song, sweet NIGHTINGALE, 
Lorn minstrel of the lonely vale ! 
Where oft I've heard thy dulcet strain 
In mournful melody complain; 
When in the POPLAR'S trembling shade, 
At Evening's purple hour I've stray'd, 
While many a silken folded flow'r 
Wept on its couch of Gossamer, 
And many a time in pensive mood 
Upon the upland mead...Read more of this...

Hero and Leander: The First Sestiad

by Christopher Marlowe
 1 On Hellespont, guilty of true love's blood,
2 In view and opposite two cities stood,
3 Sea-borderers, disjoin'd by Neptune's might;
4 The one Abydos, the other Sestos hight.
5 At Sestos Hero dwelt; Hero the fair,
6 Whom young Apollo courted for her hair,
7 And offer'd as a dower his burning throne,
8 Where she could sit for men to gaze upon.
9 The...Read more of this...

Sonnet I

by William Shakespeare
 FROM fairest creatures we desire increase,
That thereby beauty's rose might never die,
But as the riper should by time decease,
His tender heir might bear his memory:
But thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes,
Feed'st thy light'st flame with self-substantial fuel,
Making a famine where abundance lies,
Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel.
Thou that art now the world's fresh ornament
And only...Read more of this...

Lyman frederick and jim

by Eugene Field
 (FOR THE FELLOWSHIP CLU 

Lyman and Frederick and Jim, one day,
Set out in a great big ship--
Steamed to the ocean adown the bay
Out of a New York slip.
"Where are you going and what is your game?"
The people asked those three.
"Darned if we know; but all the same
Happy as larks are we;
And happier still we're going to be!"
Said Lyman
And Frederick
And...Read more of this...

1. Song—Handsome Nell

by Robert Burns
 O ONCE I lov’d a bonie lass,
 Ay, and I love her still;
And whilst that virtue warms my breast,
 I’ll love my handsome Nell.


As bonie lasses I hae seen,
 And mony full as braw;
But, for a modest gracefu’ mein,
 The like I never saw.


A bonie lass, I will confess,
 Is pleasant to the e’e;
But, without some better qualities,
 She’s...Read more of this...

Sonnet I: From Fairest Creatures We Desire Increase

by William Shakespeare
 From fairest creatures we desire increase, 
That thereby beauty's rose might never die, 
But as the riper should by time decease, 
His tender heir might bear his memory: 
But thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes, 
Feed'st thy light'st flame with self-substantial fuel, 
Making a famine where abundance lies, 
Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel. 
Thou...Read more of this...

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