Famous Lucre Poems by Famous Poets

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

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That Half-Crown Sweep

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 The run of Billabong-go-dry 
Is just beyond Lime Burner's Gap; 
Its waterhole and tank supply 
Is excellent -- upon the map. 
But lacking nature's liquid drench, 
The station staff are wont to try 
With "Bob-in Sweeps" their thirst to quench, 
Or nearly quench, at Bong-go-dry. 
The parson made five-yearly rounds 
That soil of arid souls to delve, 
He wrote,...Read more of this...

Jonah

by Robert Graves
 A purple whale 
Proudly sweeps his tail 
Towards Nineveh; 
Glassy green 
Surges between
A mile of roaring sea. 

“O town of gold, 
Of splendour multifold, 
Lucre and lust, 
Leviathan’s eye
Can surely spy 
Thy doom of death and dust.” 

On curving sands 
Vengeful Jonah stands. 
“Yet forty days,
Then down, down, 
Tumbles the town 
In flaming ruin ablaze.” 

With swift lament 
Those...Read more of this...

Heroic Poem in Praise of Wine

by Hilaire Belloc
 To exalt, enthrone, establish and defend,
To welcome home mankind's mysterious friend
Wine, true begetter of all arts that be;
Wine, privilege of the completely free;
Wine the recorder; wine the sagely strong;
Wine, bright avenger of sly-dealing wrong,
Awake, Ausonian Muse, and sing the vineyard song!

Sing how the Charioteer from Asia came,
And on his front the little dancing flame
Which marked the God-head. Sing the...Read more of this...

Scotland 1941

by Edwin Muir
 We were a tribe, a family, a people.
Wallace and Bruce guard now a painted field,
And all may read the folio of our fable,
Peruse the sword, the sceptre and the shield.
A simple sky roofed in that rustic day,
The busy corn-fields and the haunted holms,
The green road winding up the ferny brae.
But Knox and Melville clapped their preaching palms
And bundled all...Read more of this...

An Old Song

by Rudyard Kipling
 So long as 'neath the Kalka hills
 The tonga-horn shall ring,
So long as down the Solon dip
 The hard-held ponies swing,
So long as Tara Devi sees
 The lights of Simla town,
So long as Pleasure calls us up,
 Or Duty drivese us down,
 If you love me as I love you
 What pair so happy as we two?

So long as...Read more of this...

Sonnet VII

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET VII. La gola e 'l sonno e l' oziose piume. TO A FRIEND, ENCOURAGING HIM TO PURSUE POETRY.  Torn is each virtue from its earthly throneBy sloth, intemperance, and voluptuous ease;E'en nature deviates from her wonted ways,Too much the slave of vicious custom grown.Far hence is every light celestial gone,Read more of this...

Two Words

by Robert William Service
 'God' is composed of letters three,
 But if you put an 'l'
Before the last it seems to me
 A synonym for Hell.
For all of envy, greed and hate
 The human heart can hold
Respond unto the devil's bait
 Of Gold.

When God created Gold to be
 For our adorning fit,
I little think he dreamed that we
 Would come to worship it.
But...Read more of this...

Called Into Play

by A R Ammons
 Fall fell: so that's it for the leaf poetry:
some flurries have whitened the edges of roads

and lawns: time for that, the snow stuff: &
turkeys and old St. Nick: where am I going to

find something to write about I haven't already
written away: I will have to stop short, look

down, look up, look close, think, think, think:
but in what range should...Read more of this...

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