Famous Penury Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Penury poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous penury poems. These examples illustrate what a famous penury poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Strode, William
...of the grave: though cold hee seeme
He keepes those warme that else would sue to thee,
Even thee, to ease them of theyr penury.
Sorrow I would, but cannot thinke him dead,
Whose parts are rather all distributed
To those that live; His pitty lendeth eyes
Unto the blind, and to the cripple thighes,
Bones to the shatter'd corps, his hand doth make
Long armes for those that begg and cannot take:
All are supply'd with limbs, and to his freind
Hee leaves his heart, the selfe-sa...Read more of this...
by
Browning, Robert
...to their law
Might propagate their kind, with none to awe,
You'd think: a burr had been a treasure-trove.
No! penury, inertness and grimace,
In some strange sort, were the land's portion. 'See
Or shut your eyes,' said Nature peevishly,
'It nothing skills: I cannot help my case:
'Tis the Last Judgement's fire must cure this place,
Calcine its clods and set my prisoners free.'
If there pushed any ragged thistle-stalk
Above its mates, the head was chop...Read more of this...
by
Gray, Thomas
...asy the living lyre;
But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page,
Rich with the spoils of Time, did ne'er unroll;
Chill Penury repressed their noble rage,
And froze the genial current of the soul.
Full many a gem of purest ray serene
The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear;
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.
Some village-Hampden that with dauntless breast
The little tyrant of his fields withstood,
Some mute inglori...Read more of this...
by
Dickinson, Emily
...ime
Acrid whatever Fate.
Given to me without the Suit
Riches and Name and Realm --
Who was She to withhold from me
Penury and Home?...Read more of this...
by
Tagore, Rabindranath
...This is my prayer to thee, my lord---strike,
strike at the root of penury in my heart.
Give me the strength lightly to bear my joys and sorrows.
Give me the strength to make my love fruitful in service.
Give me the strength never to disown the poor or bend my knees before insolent might.
Give me the strength to raise my mind high above daily trifles.
And give me the strength to surrender my str...Read more of this...
by
Dickinson, Emily
...It came his turn to beg --
The begging for the life
Is different from another Alms
'Tis Penury in Chief --
I scanned his narrow realm
I gave him leave to live
Lest Gratitude revive the snake
Though smuggled his reprieve...Read more of this...
by
Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...ce once on Broadway
Been one that I had seen before.
The face and hands and hair were old,
But neither time nor penury
Could quench within Llewellyn’s eyes
The shine of his one victory.
The roses, faded and gone by,
Left ruin where they once had reigned;
But on the wreck, as on old shells,
The color of the rose remained.
His fictive merchandise I bought
For him to keep and show again,
Then led him slowly from the crush
Of his cold-shouldered fellow m...Read more of this...
by
Horace,
...lows dark
The merchant fears, and hugs the rural ease
Of his own village home; but soon, ashamed
Of penury, he refits his batter'd craft.
There is, who thinks no scorn of Massic draught,
Who robs the daylight of an hour unblamed,
Now stretch'd beneath the arbute on the sward,
Now by some gentle river's sacred spring;
Some love the camp, the clarion's joyous ring,
And battle, by the mother's soul abhorr'd.
See...Read more of this...
by
Robinson, Mary Darby
...Chill penury repress'd his noble rage,
And froze the genial current of his soul.
GRAY.
IF GRIEF can deprecate the wrath of Heaven,
Or human frailty hope to be forgiven !
Ere now thy sainted spirit bends its way
To the bland regions of celestial day;
Ere now, thy soul, immers'd in purest air
Smiles at the triumphs of supreme Despair;
Or bath'd in ...Read more of this...
by
Dickinson, Emily
...transmigration --
Somehow this had come --
Henceforth to remember
Nature took the Day
I had paid so much for --
His is Penury
Not who toils for Freedom
Or for Family
But the Restitution
Of Idolatry....Read more of this...
by
Scott, Duncan Campbell
...y these pure-hearted things,
Beauty in loneliness.
Where, in the realm of thought, dwell those
Who oft in pain and penury
Work in the void,
Searching the infinite dark between the stars,
The infinite little of the atom,
Gathering the tears and terrors of this life,
Distilling them to a medicine for the soul;
(And hated for their thought
Die for it calmly;
For not their fears,
Nor the cold scorn of men,
Fright them who hold to truth:)
They brood alone in the intense seren...Read more of this...
by
Dickinson, Emily
...morning and a noon
A Revelry unspeakable
And then a gay unknown
Whose Pomps allure and spurn
And dower and deprive
And penury for Glory
Remedilessly leave....Read more of this...
by
Shakespeare, William
...raise -- that you alone are you,
In whose confine immurèd is the store
Which should example where your equal grew?
Lean penury within that pen doth dwell
That to his subject lends not some small glory;
But he that writes of you, if he can tell
That you are you, so dignifies his story.
Let him but copy what in you is writ,
Not making worse what nature made so clear,
And such a counterpart shall fame his wit,
Making his style admirèd everywhere.
You to your beauteous bl...Read more of this...
by
Drayton, Michael
...t.
I build my hopes a world above the sky,
Yet with the mole I creep into the earth;
In plenty I am starv'd with penury,
And yet I surfeit in the greatest dearth.
I have, I want, despair and yet desire,
Burn'd in a sea of ice and drown'd amidst a fire....Read more of this...
by
Shakespeare, William
...ise, that you alone are you?
In whose confine immured is the store
Which should example where your equal grew.
Lean penury within that pen doth dwell
That to his subject lends not some small glory;
But he that writes of you, if he can tell
That you are you, so dignifies his story,
Let him but copy what in you is writ,
Not making worse what nature made so clear,
And such a counterpart shall fame his wit,
Making his style admired every where.
You to your beauteous bless...Read more of this...
by
Gray, Thomas
...sing bosom move
The bloom of young Desire and purple light of Love.
Man's feeble race what ills await!
Labour, and Penury, the racks of Pain,
Disease, and Sorrow's weeping train,
And Death, sad refuge from the storms of Fate!
The fond complaint, my song, disprove,
And justify the laws of Jove.
Say, has he giv'n in vain the heav'nly Muse?
Night and all her sickly dews,
Her sceptres wan, and birds of boding cry,
He gives to range the dreary sky;
Till down the eastern c...Read more of this...
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