Famous Mammon Poems by Famous Poets

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

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247. Ode Sacred to the Memory of Mrs. Oswald of Auchencruive

...
 Pity’s flood there never rose,
 See these hands ne’er stretched to save,
 Hands that took, but never gave:
 Keeper of Mammon’s iron chest,
 Lo, there she goes, unpitied and unblest,
She goes, but not to realms of everlasting rest!


ANTISTROPHEPlunderer of Armies! lift thine eyes,
 (A while forbear, ye torturing fiends;)
Seest thou whose step, unwilling, hither bends?
No fallen angel, hurl’d from upper skies;
 ’Tis thy trusty quondam Mate,
 Doom’d to share thy fiery fate;
 ...Read more of this...
by Burns, Robert


A Song To David

...XLVIII 
Control thine eye, salute success, 
Honor the wiser, happier bless, 
 And for thy neighbor feel; 
Grutch not of Mammon and his leav'n,
Work emulation up to heav'n 
 By knowledge and by zeal. 

 XLIX 
O DAVID, highest in the list 
Of worthies, on God's ways insist, 
 The genuine word repeat: 
Vain are the documents of men, 
And vain the flourish of the pen 
 That keeps the fool's conceit. 

 L 
PRAISE above all—for praise prevails; 
Heap up the measure, load the scales...Read more of this...
by Smart, Christopher

A Tale of the Miser and the Poet

...reach'd the Shades by Homer quoted. 
But all, that he cou'd there discover, 
Was, in a Pit with Thorns grown over, 
Old Mammon digging, straining, sweating, 
As Bags of Gold he thence was getting; 
Who, when reprov'd for such Dejections 
By him, who liv'd on high Reflections, 
Reply'd; Brave Sir, your Time is ended, 
And Poetry no more befriended. 

I hid this Coin, when Charles was swaying; 
When all was Riot, Masking, Playing; 
When witty Beggars were in fashion, 
And Learn...Read more of this...
by Finch, Anne Kingsmill

Ballad of Broken Flutes

...ongs of one who strove to play 
The broken flutes of Arcady. 

ENVOY

So, Rock, I join the common fray, 
To fight where Mammon may decree; 
And leave, to crumble as they may, 
The broken flutes of Arcady....Read more of this...
by Robinson, Edwin Arlington

Eviradnus

...chandelier 
 With seven iron branches—brought from hell 
 By Attila Archangel, people tell, 
 When he had conquered Mammon—and they say 
 That seven souls were the first flames that day. 
 This banquet hall looks an abyss outlined 
 With shadowy vagueness, though indeed we find 
 In the far depth upon the table spread 
 A sudden, strong, and glaring light is shed, 
 Striking upon the goldsmith's burnished works, 
 And on the pheasants killed by traitor hawks. 
 Lo...Read more of this...
by Hugo, Victor


I Rose Up at the Dawn of Day

...rose up at the dawn of day--
`Get thee away! get thee away!
Pray'st thou for riches? Away! away!
This is the Throne of Mammon grey.'

Said I: This, sure, is very odd;
I took it to be the Throne of God.
For everything besides I have:
It is only for riches that I can crave.

I have mental joy, and mental health,
And mental friends, and mental wealth;
I've a wife I love, and that loves me;
I've all but riches bodily.

I am in God's presence night and day,
And He never turns His...Read more of this...
by Blake, William

Munition Maker

...that I could with healing fare,
And pledged to poverty and prayer
Cry high above the cringing crowd:
"Ye fools! Be not Mammon cowed . . .
There are no pockets in a shroud."...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William

On The Hurricane

...ose, which threaten from on High, 
By him ne'er call'd upon before, 
Who also will suggest th' impossible Restore? 
No; Mammon, to thy Laws he will be true, 
And, rather than his Wealth, will bid the World adieu. 
The Rafters sink, and bury'd with his Coin 
That Fate does with his living Thoughts combine; 
For still his Heart's inclos'd within a Golden Mine. 


Contention with its angry Brawls 
By Storms o'er-clamour'd, shrinks and falls; 
Nor WHIG, nor TORY now the rash Cont...Read more of this...
by Finch, Anne Kingsmill

Paradise Lost: Book 01

...when bands 
Of pioneers, with spade and pickaxe armed, 
Forerun the royal camp, to trench a field, 
Or cast a rampart. Mammon led them on-- 
Mammon, the least erected Spirit that fell 
From Heaven; for even in Heaven his looks and thoughts 
Were always downward bent, admiring more 
The riches of heaven's pavement, trodden gold, 
Than aught divine or holy else enjoyed 
In vision beatific. By him first 
Men also, and by his suggestion taught, 
Ransacked the centre, and with im...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Paradise Lost: Book 02

...elial, with words clothed in reason's garb, 
Counselled ignoble ease and peaceful sloth, 
Not peace; and after him thus Mammon spake:-- 
 "Either to disenthrone the King of Heaven 
We war, if war be best, or to regain 
Our own right lost. Him to unthrone we then 
May hope, when everlasting Fate shall yield 
To fickle Chance, and Chaos judge the strife. 
The former, vain to hope, argues as vain 
The latter; for what place can be for us 
Within Heaven's bound, unless Heaven's L...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

The Revealer

...men of the city said unto him, What is sweeter than honey? and what is stronger than a lion?—Judges, 14.


The palms of Mammon have disowned 
The gift of our complacency; 
The bells of ages have intoned 
Again their rhythmic irony; 
And from the shadow, suddenly,
’Mid echoes of decrepit rage, 
The seer of our necessity 
Confronts a Tyrian heritage. 

Equipped with unobscured intent 
He smiles with lions at the gate,
Acknowledging the compliment 
Like one familiar with his fat...Read more of this...
by Robinson, Edwin Arlington

The Rhyme Of The Remittance Man

...y the din and hurry, far away the sin and worry,
 Far away -- God knows they cannot be too far.
Gilded galley-slaves of Mammon -- how my purse-proud brothers taunt me!
 I might have been as well-to-do as they
Had I clutched like them my chances, learned their wisdom, crushed my fancies,
 Starved my soul and gone to business every day.

Well, the cherry bends with blossom and the vivid grass is springing,
 And the star-like lily nestles in the green;
And the frogs their joys a...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William

The Triumph Of Time

...re cross'd.Not wealth alone, but mental stores decay,And, like the gifts of Mammon, pass away;Nor wisdom, wealth, nor fortune can withstandHis desolating march by sea and land;Nor prayers, nor regal power his wheels restrain,Till he has ground us down to dust again.Though various are the titles men can plead,Read more of this...
by Petrarch, Francesco

To My Friends

...s' broad stream;
Ships in thousands go there and depart--
There are seen the costliest works of art,
And the earth-god, Mammon, reigns supreme
But the sun his image only graves
On the silent streamlet's level plain,
Not upon the torrent's muddy waves,
Swollen by the heavy rain.

Far more blessed than we, in northern states
Dwells the beggar at the angel-gates,
For he sees the peerless city--Rome!
Beauty's glorious charms around him lie,
And, a second heaven, up toward the sky...Read more of this...
by Schiller, Friedrich von

Victory

...the tin tray on a chair; 
For weary folk are hard to wake in hot and heavy air. 

They sang in Pride's Procession that Mammon might endure – 
Oh, wistful singing faces, the children of the poor! 
Oh, hideous fiends of commerce! Oh, ghouls of business strife! 
I wait the coming of the things to wake the land to life; 
The flag without a cross or bar, the drum without a fife!...Read more of this...
by Lawson, Henry

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