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Famous Inferior Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Finch, Anne Kingsmill
...l to a composedness charmed,
Finding the elements of rage disarmed,
O'er all below a solemn quiet grown,
Joys in th' inferior world, and thinks it like her own:
In such a night let me abroad remain,
Till morning breaks, and all's confused again;
Our cares, our toils, our clamors are renewed,
Or pleasures, seldom reached, again pursued....Read more of this...



by Pope, Alexander
...no eye can see,
No glass can reach! from infinite to thee,
From thee to nothing!--On superior pow'rs
Were we to press, inferior might on ours:
Or in the full creation leave a void,
Where, one step broken, the great scale's destroy'd:
From nature's chain whatever link you strike,
Tenth or ten thousandth, breaks the chain alike.


And, if each system in gradation roll
Alike essential to th' amazing whole,
The least confusion but in one, not all
That system only, but the wh...Read more of this...

by Dickinson, Emily
...tory -- Color --
Circumference -- Decay --

Its Amber Revelation
Exhilirate -- Debase --
Omnipotence' inspection
Of Our inferior face --

And when the solemn features
Confirm -- in Victory --
We start -- as if detected
In Immortality --...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...k worthiest were to blaze
The peerles height of her immortal praise,
Whose lustre leads us, and for her most fit,
If my inferior hand or voice could hit
Inimitable sounds, yet as we go,
What ere the skill of lesser gods can show,
I will assay, her worth to celebrate, 
And so attend ye toward her glittering state;
Where ye may all that are of noble stemm
Approach, and kiss her sacred vestures hemm.


2. SONG.

O're the smooth enameld green
Where no print of step ha...Read more of this...

by Bishop, Elizabeth
...r, slipping the way the latter

do when we mail the letters we wrote on the boat, 
either because the glue here is very inferior 
or because of the heat. We leave Santos at once; 
we are driving to the interior....Read more of this...



by Pope, Alexander
...or soon or late; 
Love, if it makes her yield, must make her hate: 
Superiors? death! and Equals? what a curse! 
But an Inferior not dependant? worse. 
Offend her, and she knows not to forgive; 
Oblige her, and she'll hate you while you live: 
But die, and she'll adore you--Then the Bust 
And Temple rise--then fall again to dust. 
Last night, her Lord was all that's good and great; 
A Knave this morning, and his Will a Cheat. 
Strange! by the Means defeated of the...Read more of this...

by Pope, Alexander
...ye can see, 
No glass can reach! from Infinite to thee, 
From thee to Nothing! -- On superior pow'rs 
Were we to press, inferior might on ours: 
Or in the full creation leave a void, 
Where, one step broken, the great scale's destoy'd: 
From Nature's chain whatever link you strike, 
Tenth or ten thousandth, breaks the chain alike. 
And if each system in gradation roll, 
Alike essential to th' amazing whole; 
The least confusion but in one, not all 
That system only, but t...Read more of this...

by Murray, Judith Sargent
...timents imbibe
Who this distinction to the sex ascribe,
As if a woman's form must needs enroll
A weak, a servile, an inferior soul;
And that the guise of man must still proclaim
Greatness of mind, and him, to be the same.
Yet as the hours revolve fair proofs arise
Which the bright wreath of growing fame supplies,
And in past times some men have sunk so low,
That female records nothing less can show.
But imbecility is still confined,
And by the lordly sex to...Read more of this...

by Wheatley, Phillis
...ns, in triumph may demand
"Perpetual service from the vanquish'd land:
"Your armies I defy, your force despise,
"By far inferior in Philistia's eyes:
"Produce a man, and let us try the fight,
"Decide the contest, and the victor's right."
Thus challeng'd he: all Israel stood amaz'd,
And ev'ry chief in consternation gaz'd;
But Jesse's son in youthful bloom appears,
And warlike courage far beyond his years:
He left the folds, he left the flow'ry meads,
And soft recesses of t...Read more of this...

by Yeats, William Butler
...ess took
Me soul's unchanging look;
For the most rich inheritor,
Knowing that none could pass Heaven's door,
That loved inferior art,
Had such an aching heart
That he, although a country's talk
For silken clothes and stately walk.
Had waking wits; it seemed
Juno's peacock screamed.


 IV. My Descendants

Having inherited a vigorous mind
From my old fathers, I must nourish dreams
And leave a woman and a man behind
As vigorous of mind, and yet it seems
Life scarce c...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...throne, 
Yielded with full consent. The happier state 
In Heaven, which follows dignity, might draw 
Envy from each inferior; but who here 
Will envy whom the highest place exposes 
Foremost to stand against the Thunderer's aim 
Your bulwark, and condemns to greatest share 
Of endless pain? Where there is, then, no good 
For which to strive, no strife can grow up there 
From faction: for none sure will claim in Hell 
Precedence; none whose portion is so small 
Of present ...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...be undergone
Than when I dealt with Adam, first of men,
Though Adam by his wife's allurement fell,
However to this Man inferior far—
If he be Man by mother's side, at least
With more than human gifts from Heaven adorned,
Perfections absolute, graces divine,
And amplitude of mind to greatest deeds.
Therefore I am returned, lest confidence 
Of my success with Eve in Paradise
Deceive ye to persuasion over-sure
Of like succeeding here. I summon all
Rather to be in readin...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...n, Arabian, and Asiatic deserts; 
I see huge dreadful Arctic and Antarctic icebergs; 
I see the superior oceans and the inferior ones—the Atlantic and Pacific, the sea of
 Mexico,
 the
 Brazilian sea, and the sea of Peru, 
The Japan waters, those of Hindostan, the China Sea, and the Gulf of Guinea,
The spread of the Baltic, Caspian, Bothnia, the British shores, and the Bay of Biscay, 
The clear-sunn’d Mediterranean, and from one to another of its islands, 
The inland fresh-ta...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...ent with Adam, they have a biography of Pre-Adamites. Solomon is the monarch of all necromancy, and Moses a prophet inferior only to Christ and Mohammed. Zuleika is the Persian name of Potiphar's wife; and her amour with Joseph constitutes one of the finest poems in their language. It is, therefore, no violation of costume to put the names of Cain, or Noah, into the mouth of a Moslem. 

(31) Paswan Oglou, the rebel of Widdin; who, for the last years of his lif...Read more of this...

by Chaucer, Geoffrey
...lyn, on
which Shakespeare's "As You Like It" is founded. The story is
not Chaucer's, and is different in metre, and inferior in
composition to the Tales. It is supposed that Chaucer expunged
the Cook's Tale for the same reason that made him on his death-
bed lament that he had written so much "ribaldry."      ...Read more of this...

by Chaucer, Geoffrey
...al jurisdiction, except that
of the Pope, which made them exceedingly obnoxious to the
bishops and of course to all the inferior officers of the national
hierarchy." Both tales, whatever their origin, are bitter satires
on the greed and worldliness of the Romish clergy.



THE TALE.


Whilom* there was dwelling in my country *once on a time
An archdeacon, a man of high degree,
That boldely did execution,
In punishing of fornication,
Of witchecraft, and eke of bawd...Read more of this...

by Clare, John
...aves,
Rich Ecstasy would pour its luscious strain,
Till envy spurred the emulating thrush
To start less wild and scarce inferior songs ;
For while of half the year Care him bereaves,
To damp the ardour of his speckled breast ;
The nightingale to summer's life belongs,
And naked trees, and winter's nipping wrongs,
Are strangers to her music and her rest.
Her joys are evergreen, her world is wide—
Hark! there she is as usual— let's be hush—
For in this black-thorn clump, if...Read more of this...

by Pope, Alexander
...r'd, the cosmetic Pow'rs.
A heav'nly Image in the Glass appears,
To that she bends, to that her Eyes she rears;
Th' inferior Priestess, at her Altar's side,
Trembling, begins the sacred Rites of Pride.
Unnumber'd Treasures ope at once, and here
The various Off'rings of the World appear; 
From each she nicely culls with curious Toil,
And decks the Goddess with the glitt'ring Spoil.
This Casket India's glowing Gems unlocks,
And all Arabia breathes from yonder Box.Read more of this...

by Walcott, Derek
...ould have
to be colonial to know the difference,
to know the pain of history words contain,
to love those trees with an inferior love,
and to believe: "Those casuarinas bend
like cypresses, their hair hangs down in rain
like sailors' wives. They're classic trees, and we,
if we live like the names our masters please,
by careful mimicry might become men."


7 The Flight Anchors in
 Castries Harbor

When the stars self were young over Castries,
I loved you alone and I lo...Read more of this...

by Petrarch, Francesco
...,The rest was hid behind oblivion's pall;Save a few honour'd names, inferior farIn peace to guide, or point the storm of war.Yet e'en among the stranger tribes were foundA few selected names, in song renown'd.First, mighty Saladin, his country's boast,The scourge and terror of the baptized host.Read more of this...

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