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Famous Splendour Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Crowley, Aleister
...,
While above all, true centre of our world,
True source of light, our great love passion-pearled
Gave all its life and splendour to the sea
Above whose tides stood our stability.

Then sudden and fierce, no monitory moan,
Smote the mad mischief of the great cyclone.
How far below us all its fury rolled!
How vainly sulphur tries to tarnish gold!
We lived together: all its malice meant
Nothing but freedom of a continent!

It was the forest and the river that knew
The f...Read more of this...



by Brackenridge, Hugh Henry
...whose ways were dark, 
Ere this in shades of paganism hid, 
Did vent their poison, and malignant breath, 
To stain the splendour of the light divine, 
Which pierc'd their cells and brought their deeds to view 
Num'rous combin'd of ev'ry tongue and tribe, 
Made battle proud, and impious war brought on, 
Against the chosen sanctified by light. 
Riches and pow'r leagu'd in their train were seen, 
Sword, famine, flames and death before them prey'd. 
Those faithful found,...Read more of this...

by Abercrombie, Lascelles
...knoweth not our delight?
Knoweth not beautifully now our love,
That Life, here to this festival bid come
Clad in his splendour of worldly day and night,
Filled and empower’d by heavenly lust, is all
The glad imagination of the Spirit?

He

Were it not so, Love could not be at all:
Nought could be, but a yearning to fulfil
Desire of beauty, by vain reaching forth
Of sense to hold and understand the vision
Made by impassion’d body,—vision of thee!
But music mixt w...Read more of this...

by Wilde, Oscar
...d drugs, - alas! I must
From such sweet ruin play the runaway,
Although too constant memory never can
Forget the arched splendour of those brows Olympian

Which for a little season made my youth
So soft a swoon of exquisite indolence
That all the chiding of more prudent Truth
Seemed the thin voice of jealousy, - O hence
Thou huntress deadlier than Artemis!
Go seek some other quarry! for of thy too perilous bliss.

My lips have drunk enough, - no more, no more, 
-
Though L...Read more of this...

by Alighieri, Dante
...d the night was not. 
 The hollowed blackness of that waste, God wot, 
 Shrank, thinned, and ceased. A blinding splendour hot 
 Flushed the great height toward which my footsteps fell, 
 And though it kindled from the nether hell, 
 Or from the Star that all men leads, alike 
 It showed me where the great dawn-glories strike 
 The wide east, and the utmost peaks of snow. 

 How first I entered on that path astray, 
 Beset with sleep, I know not. This I know.Read more of this...



by Byron, George (Lord)
...st; 
But mighty Nature bounds as from her birth, 
The sun is in the heavens, and life on earth; 
Flowers in the valley, splendour in the beam, 
Health on the gale, and freshness in the stream. 
Immortal man! behold her glories shine, 
And cry, exulting inly, "They are thine!" 
Gaze on, while yet thy gladden'd eye may see, 
A morrow comes when they are not for thee; 
And grieve what may above thy senseless bier, 
Nor earth nor sky will yield a single tear; 
Nor cloud shall...Read more of this...

by Marvell, Andrew
...re, 
Sun of our world, as he the Charles is there, 
Blame not the Muse that brought those spots to sight, 
Which in you splendour hid, corrode your light: 
(Kings in the country oft have gone astray 
Nor of a peasant scorned to learn the way.) 
Would she the unattended throne reduce, 
Banishing love, trust, ornament, and use, 
Better it were to live in cloister's lock, 
Or in fair fields to rule the easy flock. 
She blames them only who the court restrain 
And where a...Read more of this...

by Kendall, Henry
...IFTED mountains, clad with forests, girded round by gleaming pines, 
Where the morning, like an angel, robed in golden splendour shines; 
Shimmering mountains, throwing downward on the slopes a mazy glare 
Where the noonday glory sails through gulfs of calm and glittering air; 
Stately mountains, high and hoary, piled with blocks of amber cloud, 
Where the fading twilight lingers, when the winds are wailing loud; 

Grand old mountains, overbeetling brawling brooks and ...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...ngers, and as hard escape? 
But I should ill become this throne, O Peers, 
And this imperial sovereignty, adorned 
With splendour, armed with power, if aught proposed 
And judged of public moment in the shape 
Of difficulty or danger, could deter 
Me from attempting. Wherefore do I assume 
These royalties, and not refuse to reign, 
Refusing to accept as great a share 
Of hazard as of honour, due alike 
To him who reigns, and so much to him due 
Of hazard more as he above ...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...d now by glimpse discern 
Ithuriel and Zephon through the shade; 
And with them comes a third of regal port, 
But faded splendour wan; who by his gait 
And fierce demeanour seems the Prince of Hell, 
Not likely to part hence without contest; 
Stand firm, for in his look defiance lours. 
He scarce had ended, when those two approached, 
And brief related whom they brought, where found, 
How busied, in what form and posture couched. 
To whom with stern regard thus Gabrie...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...onsist. 
Who can in reason then, or right, assume 
Monarchy over such as live by right 
His equals, if in power and splendour less, 
In freedom equal? or can introduce 
Law and edict on us, who without law 
Err not? much less for this to be our Lord, 
And look for adoration, to the abuse 
Of those imperial titles, which assert 
Our being ordained to govern, not to serve. 
Thus far his bold discourse without controul 
Had audience; when among the Seraphim 
Abdiel, than...Read more of this...

by Wilde, Oscar
...a pall
That hides thy fallen greatness! and thy name
Burns like a grey and flickering candle-flame
Beneath the noonday splendour of the sun
Of new Italia! for the night is done,
The night of dark oppression, and the day
Hath dawned in passionate splendour: far away
The Austrian hounds are hunted from the land,
Beyond those ice-crowned citadels which stand
Girdling the plain of royal Lombardy,
From the far West unto the Eastern sea.

I know, indeed, that sons of thine hav...Read more of this...

by Cook, Eliza
...;
Your lips may be fresh and your cheeks may be fair--
Let a few years pass over, and I shall be there.

Cities of splendour, where palace and gate,
Where the marble of strength and the purple of state ;
Where the mart and arena, the olive and vine,
Once flourished in glory ; oh ! are ye not mine ?
Go look for famed Carthage, and I shall be found
In the desolate ruin and weed-covered mound ;
And the slime of my trailing discovers my home,
'Mid the pillars of Tyre and the...Read more of this...

by Goldsmith, Oliver
...with looks profound,
And news much older than their ale went round.
Imagination fondly stoops to trace
The parlour splendours of that festive place:
The white-washed wall, the nicely sanded floor,
The varnished clock that clicked behind the door;
The chest contrived a double debt to pay,— 
A bed by night, a chest of drawers by day;
The pictures placed for ornament and use,
The twelve good rules, the royal game of goose;
The hearth, except when winter chilled the day,
Wit...Read more of this...

by Wilde, Oscar
...e half afraid
Of their own loveliness some violets lie
That will not look the gold sun in the face
For fear of too much splendour, - ah! methinks it is a place

Which should be trodden by Persephone
When wearied of the flowerless fields of Dis!
Or danced on by the lads of Arcady!
The hidden secret of eternal bliss
Known to the Grecian here a man might find,
Ah! you and I may find it now if Love and Sleep be kind.

There are the flowers which mourning Herakles
Strewed on t...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...rmour with a crown of gold 
About a casque all jewels; and his horse 
In golden armour jewelled everywhere: 
And on the splendour came, flashing me blind; 
And seemed to me the Lord of all the world, 
Being so huge. But when I thought he meant 
To crush me, moving on me, lo! he, too, 
Opened his arms to embrace me as he came, 
And up I went and touched him, and he, too, 
Fell into dust, and I was left alone 
And wearying in a land of sand and thorns. 

`And I rode on ...Read more of this...

by Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...Swift as a spirit hastening to his task 
Of glory & of good, the Sun sprang forth
Rejoicing in his splendour, & the mask
Of darkness fell from the awakened Earth.
The smokeless altars of the mountain snows
Flamed above crimson clouds, & at the birth
Of light, the Ocean's orison arose
To which the birds tempered their matin lay,
All flowers in field or forest which unclose
Their trembling eyelids to the kiss of day,
Swinging their censers in the elemen...Read more of this...

by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...nd a clatter and a chatter from within
Where fishmen lounge at noon: where the walls
Of Magnus Martyr hold
Inexplicable splendour of Ionian white and gold.
 The river sweats
 Oil and tar
 The barges drift
 With the turning tide
 Red sails 
 Wide
 To leeward, swing on the heavy spar.
 The barges wash
 Drifting logs
 Down Greenwich reach
 Past the Isle of Dogs.
 Weialala leia
 Wallala leialala
 Elizabeth and Leicester
 Beating oars 
 The stern was formed
 A gilded s...Read more of this...

by Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...ps could dwindle
In the belated moon, wound skilfully;
And with these threads a subtle veil she wove--
A shadow for the splendour of her love.

The deep recesses of her odorous dwelling
Were stored with magic treasures:--sounds of air
Which had the power all spirits of compelling,
Folded in cells of crystal silence there;
Such as we hear in youth, and think the feeling
will never die--yet, ere we are aware,
The feeling and the sound are fled and gone
And the regret they l...Read more of this...

by Bronte, Charlotte
...Its gleam of poisoned fire is blent,
Where flame through azure thrills ! 

Depart we now­for fast will fade
That solemn splendour of decline,
And deep must be the after-shade
As stars alone to-night will shine;
No moon is destined­pale­to gaze
On such a day's vast Phoenix blaze,
A day in fires decayed ! 

There­hand-in-hand we tread again 
The mazes of this varying wood, 
And soon, amid a cultured plain, 
Girt in with fertile solitude, 
We shall our resting-place descry, 
Mar...Read more of this...

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