Famous Opulence Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Opulence poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous opulence poems. These examples illustrate what a famous opulence poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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...miling plains where Chesapeak
Spreads her maternal arms, encompassing
In soft embrace, full many a settlement,
Where opulence, with hospitality,
And polish'd manners, and the living plant
Of science blooming, sets their glory high [1].
Thence to Virginia, sister colony,
Lib'ral in sentiment, and breathing high,
The noble ardour of the freeborn soul.
To Carolina thence, and that warm clime
Where Georgia south in summer heat complains,
And distant thence towards the ...Read more of this...
by
Brackenridge, Hugh Henry
...day was warm and poetic,
the sky was a light azure,
the Alexandrian Gymnasium was
a triumphant achievement of art,
the opulence of the courtiers was extraordinary,
Caesarion was full of grace and beauty
(son of Cleopatra, blood of the Lagidae);
and the Alexandrians rushed to the ceremony,
and got enthusiastic, and cheered
in greek, and egyptian, and some in hebrew,
enchanted by the beautiful spectacle --
although they full well knew what all these were worth,
what hollow wor...Read more of this...
by
Cavafy, Constantine P
...from the star is lost, and not
One dropp missing from the ocean tides.
Oh! brother to the star and sea, know all
God’s opulence is held in trust for those
Who wait serenely and who work in faith....Read more of this...
by
Wilcox, Ella Wheeler
...ee
With last Delight I own!
It cannot be my Spirit --
For that was thine, before --
I ceded all of Dust I knew --
What Opulence the more
Had I -- a freckled Maiden,
Whose farthest of Degree,
Was -- that she might --
Some distant Heaven,
Dwell timidly, with thee!
Sift her, from Brow to Barefoot!
Strain till your last Surmise --
Drop, like a Tapestry, away,
Before the Fire's Eyes --
Winnow her finest fondness --
But hallow just the snow
Intact, in Everlasting flake --
Oh, Cav...Read more of this...
by
Dickinson, Emily
...had
Of saying ‘Father.’
He gave them neither eminence nor wealth,
But he gave them blood untainted with a vice,
And opulence of undiluted health.
He was honest, and unpurchable and kind;
He was clean in heart, and body, and in mind.
So he made them heirs to riches without price –
This father.
He never preached or scolded; and the rod –
Well, he used it as a turning pole in play.
But he showed the tender sympathy of God.
To his children in their troubles, and their joys....Read more of this...
by
Wilcox, Ella Wheeler
...ricity in dress,
you may set him down for a genius.
If he sings about the degeneracy of a world
which courts vulgar opulence
and neglects brains,
he is undoubtedly a genius.
If he is too proud to accept assistance,
and spurns it with a lordly air
at the very same time
that he knows he can't make a living to save his life,
he is most certainly a genius.
If he hangs on and sticks to poetry,
notwithstanding sawing wood comes handier to him,
he is a true genius.
...Read more of this...
by
Montgomery, Lucy Maud
...elf what I would be --
And novel Comforting
My Poverty and I derive --
We question if the Man --
Who own -- Esteem the Opulence --
As We -- Who never Can --
Should ever these exploring Hands
Chance Sovereign on a Mine --
Or in the long -- uneven term
To win, become their turn --
How fitter they will be -- for Want --
Enlightening so well --
I know not which, Desire, or Grant --
Be wholly beautiful --...Read more of this...
by
Dickinson, Emily
...comes to us
before there is a yen or a need for it. The green-
grocers, uptown and down, are from South Korea.
Orchids, opulence by the pailful, just slightly
fatigued by the plane trip from Hawaii, are
disposed on the sidewalks; alstroemerias, freesias
fattened a bit in translation from overseas; gladioli
likewise estranged from their piercing ancestral crimson;
as well as, less altered from the original blue cornflower
of the roadsides and railway embankments of Europe, the...Read more of this...
by
Clampitt, Amy
...
Or riches challenge it for one that's new,
The British language claims in either sense
Both for its age, and for its opulence.
But all great things must be from us removed,
To be with higher reverence beloved.
So landskips which in prospects distant lie,
With greater wonder draw the pleasèd eye.
Is not great Troy to one dark ruin hurled?
Once the fam'd scene of all the fighting world.
Where's Athens now, to whom Rome learning owes,
And the safe laurels that adorned...Read more of this...
by
Philips, Katherine
...ith the rainbow flushes;
Surplus water dashed away
To the lotus and the rushes.
Time was clothed in rippling fashion,.
Opulence of light and air,
Beauty changing into passion
Every hour and everywhere.
And the yearning of that race
Was for something deep and tender,
Life replete with power, with grace,
Touched with vision and with splendour.
Now no rain dissolves and cools,
Dew is even as a dream,
The enticing far-off pools
In a mirage only seem.
All the traces that remai...Read more of this...
by
Scott, Duncan Campbell
...spring:
Confusion is variety, variety
And confusion in everything
Make experience the true conclusion
Of all desire and opulence,
All satisfaction and poverty.
II
When a hundred years had passed nature seemed to man
a clock
Another century sank away and nature seemed a jungle
in a rock
And now that nature has become a ticking and hidden
bomb how we must mock
Newton, Democritus, the Deity
The heart's ingenuity and the mind's infinite
uncontrollable
insatiable curiosity....Read more of this...
by
Schwartz, Delmore
...s the swain;
Along the lawn, where scattered hamlet's rose,
Unwieldy wealth and cumbrous pomp repose,
And every want to opulence allied,
And every pang that folly pays to pride.
Those gentle hours that plenty bade to bloom,
Those calm desires that asked but little room,
Those healthful sports that graced the peaceful scene,
Lived in each look, and brightened all the green;
These, far departing, seek a kinder shore,
And rural mirth and manners are no more.
Sweet Auburn! paren...Read more of this...
by
Goldsmith, Oliver
...er Fortune's worthless favourites!
Who feed on England's vitals--Pensioners
Of base corruption, who, in quick ascent
To opulence unmerited, become
Giddy with pride, and as ye rise, forgetting
The dust ye lately left, with scorn look down
On those beneath ye (tho' your equals once
In fortune , and in worth superior still ,
They view the eminence, on which ye stand,
With wonder, not with envy; for they know
The means, by which ye reach'd it, have been such
As, in all honest eye...Read more of this...
by
Turner Smith, Charlotte
...gold, jewels, and precious gems,
With which your brow might outshine royalty;
And for rank, pride, splendor, and opulence,
Might many a queen be envious of his duchess!
Here is one picture. I am poor; my youth
I passed i' the woods, a barefoot fugitive.
My shield, perchance, may bear some noble blazons
Spotted with blood, defaced though not dishonored.
Perchance I, too, have rights, now veiled in darkness,—
Rights, which the heavy drapery of the sc...Read more of this...
by
Hugo, Victor
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