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Famous Splendid Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Burns, Robert
...UPON that night, when fairies light
 On Cassilis Downans 2 dance,
Or owre the lays, in splendid blaze,
 On sprightly coursers prance;
Or for Colean the rout is ta’en,
 Beneath the moon’s pale beams;
There, up the Cove, 3 to stray an’ rove,
 Amang the rocks and streams
 To sport that night;


Amang the bonie winding banks,
 Where Doon rins, wimplin, clear;
Where Bruce 4 ance rul’d the martial ranks,
 An’ shook his Carrick spear;
Some merry, fri...Read more of this...



by Brackenridge, Hugh Henry
...of war 
With martial vigour every breast inspir'd, 
With valour fierce and love of deathless fame; 
But here a rich and splendid throng conven'd 
From many a distant city and fair town, 
Or rural seat by shore or mountain-stream, 
Breathe joy and blessing to the human race, 
Give countenance to arts themselves have known, 
Inspire the love of heights themselves have reach'd, 
Of noble science to enlarge the mind, 
Of truth and virtue to adorn the soul, 
And make the human nat...Read more of this...

by Hugo, Victor
...e levin through, 
As if some giant of the air amid the vapors drew 
A sudden elemental sword. 

The sun at bay with splendid thrusts still keeps the sullen fold; 
And momently at distance sets, as a cupola of gold, 
The thatched roof of a cot a-glance; 
Or on the blurred horizon joins his battle with the haze; 
Or pools the blooming fields about with inter-isolate blaze, 
Great moveless meres of radiance. 

Then mark you how there hangs athwart the firmament's swept t...Read more of this...

by Wilde, Oscar
...esbian waters plucked drowned Sappho's golden quid!

Enough, enough that he whose life had been
A fiery pulse of sin, a splendid shame,
Could in the loveless land of Hades glean
One scorching harvest from those fields of flame
Where passion walks with naked unshod feet
And is not wounded, - ah! enough that once their lips could meet

In that wild throb when all existences
Seemed narrowed to one single ecstasy
Which dies through its own sweetness and the stress
Of too much ple...Read more of this...

by Bradstreet, Anne
...delight! 

7 

43 Art thou so full of glory that no Eye
44 Hath strength thy shining Rays once to behold?
45 And is thy splendid Throne erect so high
46 As, to approach it, can no earthly mould?
47 How full of glory then must thy Creator be!
48 Who gave this bright light luster unto thee.
49 Admir'd, ador'd for ever be that Majesty! 

8 

50 Silent alone where none or saw or heard,
51 In pathless paths I lead my wand'ring feet.
52 My humble Eyes to lofty Skies I rear'...Read more of this...



by Wilcox, Ella Wheeler
...and true
Come at the bugle call, and march in grand review? 



LXI.
The pleased Commander watches in surprise
This splendid pageant surge before his eyes.
Not in those mighty battle days of old
Did scenes like this upon his sight unfold.
But now it passes. Drums and bugles cease
To dash war billows on the shores of Peace.
The victors smile on fair broad bosomed Sleep
While in her soothing arms, the vanquished cease to weep.



BOOK THIRD.
There is...Read more of this...

by Hugo, Victor
...ill amaze 
 E'en hell itself, when it on them shall gaze. 
 Ah, Sigismond and Ladisläus, you 
 Were once triumphant, splendid to the view, 
 Stifling with your prosperity—but now 
 The hour of retribution lays you low. 
 Ah, do the vulture and the crocodile 
 Shed tears! At such a sight I fain must smile. 
 It seems to me 'tis very good sometimes 
 That princes, conquerors stained with bandits' crimes, 
 Sparkling with splendor, wearing crowns of gold, 
 Should kno...Read more of this...

by Larkin, Philip
...did not invent
Blinding theologies of flowers and fruits,
And wasn't spoken to by an old hat.
And here we have that splendid family

I never ran to when I got depressed,
The boys all biceps and the girls all chest,
Their comic Ford, their farm where I could be
'Really myself'. I'll show you, come to that,
The bracken where I never trembling sat,

Determined to go through with it; where she
Lay back, and 'all became a burning mist'.
And, in those offices, my dogger...Read more of this...

by Emerson, Ralph Waldo
...unding woes; 
See Dissipation smoothly glide, 
Cold Apathy, and puny Pride, 
Capricious Fortune, dull, and blind, 
O'er splendid Folly throws her veil, 
While Envy's meagre tribe assail 
Thy gentle form, and spotless mind. 

Their spells prevail! no more those eyes 
Shoot undulating fires; 
On thy wan cheek, the young rose dies, 
Thy lip's deep tint expires; 
Dark Melancholy chills thy mind; 
Thy silent tear reveals thy woe; 
TIME strews with thorns thy mazy way, 
Where'e...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...we hate! Let us not then pursue, 
By force impossible, by leave obtained 
Unacceptable, though in Heaven, our state 
Of splendid vassalage; but rather seek 
Our own good from ourselves, and from our own 
Live to ourselves, though in this vast recess, 
Free and to none accountable, preferring 
Hard liberty before the easy yoke 
Of servile pomp. Our greatness will appear 
Then most conspicuous when great things of small, 
Useful of hurtful, prosperous of adverse, 
We can cr...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...joyfully meet its translation; 
I announce myriads of youths, beautiful, gigantic, sweet-blooded;
I announce a race of splendid and savage old men. 

3
O thicker and faster! (So long!) 
O crowding too close upon me; 
I foresee too much—it means more than I thought; 
It appears to me I am dying.

Hasten throat, and sound your last! 
Salute me—salute the days once more. Peal the old cry once more. 

Screaming electric, the atmosphere using, 
At random glancing,...Read more of this...

by Doty, Mark
...gainst one another 

on the grass. In a casket are rhinestoned poles 
the hierophants carried in parades; 
here's a splendid golden staff some ranking officer waved, 
topped with a golden pyramid and a tiny, 
inquisitive sphinx. No one's worn this stuff 
for years, and it doesn't seem worth buying; 
where would we put it? Still, 

I want that staff. I used to love 
to go to the library -- the smalltown brick refuge 
of those with nothing to do, really, 
'Carnegie'...Read more of this...

by Chesterton, G K
...he arrow,
But swifter sprang the Gael.

Whirling the one sword round his head,
A great wheel in the sun,
He sent it splendid through the sky,
Flying before the shaft could fly--
It smote Earl Harold over the eye,
And blood began to run.

Colan stood bare and weaponless,
Earl Harold, as in pain,
Strove for a smile, put hand to head,
Stumbled and suddenly fell dead;
And the small white daisies all waxed red
With blood out of his brain.

And all at that marvel of the...Read more of this...

by Goldsmith, Oliver
...men, who survey
The rich man's joys increase, the poor's decay,
'Tis yours to judge how wide the limits stand
Between a splendid and a happy land.
Proud swells the tide with loads of freighted ore,
And shouting Folly hails them from her shore;
Hoards even beyond the miser's wish abound,
And rich men flock from all the world around.
Yet count our gains. This wealth is but a name
That leaves our useful products still the same.
Not so the loss. The man of wea...Read more of this...

by Sexton, Anne
...>
You seldom came. I just pretended
you, small piglet, butterfly
girl with jelly bean cheeks,
disobedient three, my splendid

stranger. And I had to learn
why I would rather
die than love, how your innocence
would hurt and how I gather
guilt like a young intern
his symptons, his certain evidence.

That October day we went
to Gloucester the red hills
reminded me of the dry red fur fox
coat I played in as a child; stock still
like a bear or a tent,
like a great cave...Read more of this...

by Bridges, Robert Seymour
...true,
Nor wail the woe which thou to joy hast turn'd
Nor come the heavenly sun and bathing blue
To my life's need more splendid and unearn'd
Than hath thy gift outmatch'd desire and due. 

10
Winter was not unkind because uncouth;
His prison'd time made me a closer guest,
And gave thy graciousness a warmer zest,
Biting all else with keen and angry tooth
And bravelier the triumphant blood of youth
Mantling thy cheek its happy home possest,
And sterner sport by day put str...Read more of this...

by Scott, Sir Walter
...ound,
     Plucked a blue harebell from the ground,—
     'For me, whose memory scarce conveys
     An image of more splendid days,
     This little flower that loves the lea
     May well my simple emblem be;
     It drinks heaven's dew as blithe as rose
     That in the King's own garden grows;
     And when I place it in my hair,
     Allan, a bard is bound to swear
     He ne'er saw coronet so fair.'
     Then playfully the chaplet wild
     She wreathed in he...Read more of this...

by Petrarch, Francesco
....One, like a planet by the lord of day,Seem'd o'er-illumined by her splendid ray,By brightness hid; for he, to virtue true,His mind from Love's soft bondage nobly drew.The other, half a slave to female charms,Parted his homage to the god of armsAnd Love's seductive power: but, close and deep,<...Read more of this...

by Miller, Alice Duer
...hose invisible bars of manners and speech,
Ways that the proud man will not teach
The humble lest they too reach 
Those splendid heights where a little band 
Have always stood and will always stand 
Ruling the fate of this small green land, 
Rulers of England—for them must I 
Send out my only son to die? 

LI 
And then, and then, 
I thought of Elizabeth stepping down 
Over the stones of Plymouth town 
To welcome her sailors, common men, 
She herself, as she used to say, 
Bein...Read more of this...

by Sappho,
...a
lives in distant Sardis,
she thinks of us constantly, and

of the life we shared in days when for her
you were a splendid goddess,
and your singing gave her deep joy.
 
Now she shines among Lydian women as
when the red-fingered moon
rises after sunset, erasing

stars around her, and pouring light equally
across the salt sea 
and over densely flowered fields;

and lucent dew spreads on the earth to quicken
roses and fragile thyme
and the sweet-blooming ...Read more of this...

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Book: Shattered Sighs