Famous Pomp Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The King and the Shepherd

by Anne Kingsmill Finch
 Through ev'ry Age some Tyrant Passion reigns: 
Now Love prevails, and now Ambition gains 
Reason's lost Throne, and sov'reign Rule maintains. 
Tho' beyond Love's, Ambition's Empire goes; 
For who feels Love, Ambition also knows, 
And proudly still aspires to be possest 
Of Her, he thinks superior to the rest. 

As cou'd be prov'd, but that our plainer Task 
Do's...Read more of this...

Sonnet 124: If my dear love were but the child of state

by William Shakespeare
 If my dear love were but the child of state,
It might for Fortune's bastard be unfathered,
As subject to Time's love or to Time's hate,
Weeds among weeds, or flowers with flowers gathered.
No, it was builded far from accident;
It suffers not in smiling pomp, nor falls
Under the blow of thralled discontent,
Whereto th' inviting time our fashion calls.
It fears not policy, that...Read more of this...

In the Jewish Synagogue at Newport

by Emma Lazarus
 Here, where the noises of the busy town, 
The ocean's plunge and roar can enter not,
We stand and gaze around with tearful awe,
And muse upon the consecrated spot.

No signs of life are here: the very prayers
Inscribed around are in a language dead;
The light of the "perpetual lamp" is spent
That an undying radiance was to shed.

What prayers were in this...Read more of this...

The Victory of Patience

by Helen Hunt Jackson
 Armed of the gods! Divinest conqueror! 
What soundless hosts are thine! Nor pomp, nor state, 
Nor token, to betray where thou dost wait. 
All Nature stands, for thee, ambassador; 
Her forces all thy serfs, for peace or war. 
greatest and least alike, thou rul'st their fate,-- 
The avalanch chained until its century's date, 
The mulberry leaf made robe for...Read more of this...

A Forest Hymn

by William Cullen Bryant
THE GROVES were God's first temples. Ere man learned 
To hew the shaft and lay the architrave  
And spread the roof above them¡ªere he framed 
The lofty vault to gather and roll back 
The sound of anthems; in the darkling wood 5 
Amidst the cool and silence he knelt down  
And offered to the Mightiest solemn thanks 
And...Read more of this...

The Missal Makers

by Robert William Service
 To visit the Escurial
We took a motor bus,
And there a guide mercurial
 Took charge of us.
He showed us through room after room,
And talked hour after hour,
Of place, crypt and royal tomb,
 Of pomp and power.

But in bewilderment of grace
What pleased me most of all
Were ancient missals proud in place
 In stately hall.
A thousand tomes there were at least,
All luminously...Read more of this...

Recessional (A Victorian Ode)

by Rudyard Kipling
 God of our fathers, known of old --
 Lord of our far-flung battle line --
Beneath whose awful hand we hold
 Dominion over palm and pine --
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget -- lest we forget!

The tumult and the shouting dies --
 The Captains and the Kings depart --
Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice,
 An humble and...Read more of this...

A Birthday

by Aleister Crowley
 "Aug." 10, 1911.

Full moon to-night; and six and twenty years
Since my full moon first broke from angel spheres!
A year of infinite love unwearying ---
No circling seasons, but perennial spring!
A year of triumph trampling through defeat,
The first made holy and the last made sweet
By this same love; a year of wealth and woe,
Joy, poverty, health, sickness --- all one glow
In...Read more of this...

My Soul Thirsteth for God

by William Cowper
 I thirst, but not as once I did,
The vain delights of earth to share;
Thy wounds, Emmanuel, all forbid
That I should seek my pleasures there.

It was the sight of Thy dear cross
First wean'd my soul from earthly things;
And taught me to esteem as dross
The mirth of fools and pomp of kings.

I want that grace that springs from Thee,
That quickens all...Read more of this...

The Beauteous Flower

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 SONG OF THE IMPRISONED COUNT.

COUNT.

I KNOW a flower of beauty rare,

Ah, how I hold it dear!
To seek it I would fain repair,

Were I not prison'd here.
My sorrow sore oppresses me,
For when I was at liberty,

I had it close beside me.

Though from this castle's walls so steep

I cast mine eyes around,
And gaze oft from the lofty keep,

The flower can not...Read more of this...

A Hymn for Christmas Day

by Thomas Chatterton
 Almighty Framer of the Skies! 
O let our pure devotion rise, 
Like Incense in thy Sight! 
Wrapt in impenetrable Shade 
The Texture of our Souls were made 
Till thy Command gave light. 
The Sun of Glory gleam'd the Ray, 
Refin'd the Darkness into Day, 
And bid the Vapours fly; 
Impell'd by his eternal Love 
He left his Palaces above...Read more of this...

The Song Of The Pacifist

by Robert William Service
 What do they matter, our headlong hates, when we take the toll of our Dead?
Think ye our glory and gain will pay for the torrent of blood we have shed?
By the cheers of our Victory will the heart of the mother be comforted?

If by the Victory all we mean is a broken and brooding foe;
Is the pomp and power...Read more of this...

The Widows Home

by Mary Darby Robinson
 Close on the margin of a brawling brook
That bathes the low dell's bosom, stands a Cot;
O'ershadow'd by broad Alders. At its door
A rude seat, with an ozier canopy
Invites the weary traveller to rest.
'Tis a poor humble dwelling; yet within,
The sweets of joy domestic, oft have made
The long hour not unchearly, while the Moor
Was covered with deep snow, and the...Read more of this...

A darting fear -- a pomp -- a tear

by Emily Dickinson
 A darting fear -- a pomp -- a tear --
A waking on a morn
To find that what one waked for,
Inhales the different dawn....Read more of this...

The Last Man

by Thomas Campbell
 All worldly shapes shall melt in gloom, 
The Sun himself must die, 
Before this mortal shall assume 
Its Immortality! 
I saw a vision in my sleep 
That gave my spirit strength to sweep 
Adown the gulf of Time! 
I saw the last of human mould, 
That shall Creation's death behold, 
As Adam saw her prime! 

The Sun's eye had...Read more of this...

Psalm 146

by Isaac Watts
 Praise to God for his goodness and truth.

Praise ye the Lord, my heart shall join
In work so pleasant, so divine;
Now, while the flesh is mine abode,
And when my soul ascends to God.

Praise shall employ my noblest powers,
While immortality endures;
My days of praise shall ne'er be past,
While life, and thought, and being last.

Why should I make a man my trust?
Princes...Read more of this...

Fortitude

by Robert William Service
 Time, the Jester, jeers at you;
Your life's a fleeting breath;
Your birthday's flimsy I.O.U.
To that old devil, Death.
And though to glory you attain,
Or be to beauty born,
Your pomp and vanity are vain:
Time ticks you off with scorn.

Time, the Cynic, sneers at you,
And stays you in your stride;
He flouts the daring deeds you do,
And pillories your pride.
The triumph of your yesterday
He...Read more of this...

Alcidor

by Anne Kingsmill Finch
 While Monarchs in stern Battle strove 
For proud Imperial Sway; 
Abandon'd to his milder Love, 
Within a silent peaceful Grove, 
Alcidor careless lay. 

Some term'd it cold, unmanly Fear; 
Some, Nicety of Sense, 
That Drums and Trumpets cou'd not hear, 
The sullying Blasts of Powder bear, 
Or with foul Camps dispense. 

A patient Martyr to their Scorn, 
And each...Read more of this...

Pastoral Stanzas

by Mary Darby Robinson
 WHEN AURORA'S soft blushes o'erspread the blue hill,
And the mist dies away at the glances of morn;
When the birds join the music that floats on the rill,
And the beauties of spring the young woodlands adorn. 

To breathe the pure air and enliven my soul,
I bound from my cottage exulting and gay;
No care to molest me, no pow'r to controul,
I...Read more of this...

The Ancient World

by Mark Doty
 Today the Masons are auctioning 
their discarded pomp: a trunk of turbans, 
gemmed and ostrich-plumed, and operetta costumes 
labeled inside the collar "Potentate" 
and "Vizier." Here their chairs, blazoned 
with the Masons' sign, huddled 
like convalescents, lean against one another 

on the grass. In a casket are rhinestoned poles 
the hierophants carried in parades; 
here's a splendid golden staff...Read more of this...

The Eleusinian Festival

by Friedrich von Schiller
 Wreathe in a garland the corn's golden ear!
With it, the Cyane [31] blue intertwine
Rapture must render each glance bright and clear,
For the great queen is approaching her shrine,--
She who compels lawless passions to cease,
Who to link man with his fellow has come,
And into firm habitations of peace
Changed the rude tents' ever-wandering home.

Shyly in the mountain-cleft
Was the Troglodyte concealed;
And the...Read more of this...

Since neither man's proud pomp kingly name

by Hafez
Since neither man’s proud pomp & kingly name
Endureth, nor his monumental throne,
Nor honour’d shrine, nor pinnacle of fame;

Since borne in agony to life he came
& in pain too he passeth, one by one
His joys desert him, friendless & alone,

Yea since all lov’d delights their cycles range,
All to their parent elements return,
Air to air, dust to dust,—when Thy Life’s breath,

The fire...Read more of this...

The Wanderers

by Robert Browning
 OVER the sea our galleys went, 
With cleaving prows in order brave 
To a speeding wind and a bounding wave-- 
 A gallant armament: 
Each bark built out of a forest-tree 
 Left leafy and rough as first it grew, 
And nail'd all over the gaping sides, 
Within and without, with black bull-hides, 
Seethed in fat and suppled in...Read more of this...

530. Song—Yonder pomp of costly fashion

by Robert Burns
 MARK yonder pomp of costly fashion
 Round the wealthy, titled bride:
But when compar’d with real passion,
 Poor is all that princely pride.
 Mark yonder, &c. (four lines repeated).


 What are the showy treasures,
 What are the noisy pleasures?
The gay, gaudy glare of vanity and art:
 The polish’d jewels’ blaze
 May draw the wond’ring gaze;
 And courtly grandeur bright
 The...Read more of this...

A Funeral Fantasie

by Friedrich von Schiller
 Pale, at its ghastly noon,
Pauses above the death-still wood--the moon;
The night-sprite, sighing, through the dim air stirs;
The clouds descend in rain;
Mourning, the wan stars wane,
Flickering like dying lamps in sepulchres!
Haggard as spectres--vision-like and dumb,
Dark with the pomp of death, and moving slow,
Towards that sad lair the pale procession come
Where the grave closes on the night below.

With dim, deep-sunken eye,
Crutched...Read more of this...

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