Famous Tedious Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A Satyre Against Mankind

...and kind.
For which he takes such pains to be thought wise,
And screws his actions, in a forced disguise;
Leads a most tedious life in misery,
Under laborious, mean hypocrisy.
Look to the bottom of his vast design,
Wherein man's wisdom, power, and glory join:
The good he acts. the ill he does endure.
'Tis all from fear, to make himself secure.
Merely for safety after fame they thirst,
For all men would be cowards if they durst.
And honesty's against all common sense,
Men mus...Read more of this...
by Wilmot, John


Absalom And Achitophel

...itophel:
Thus, wicked but in will, of means bereft,
He left not faction, but of that was left.

Titles and names 'twere tedious to rehearse
Of lords, below the dignity of verse.
Wits, warriors, commonwealths-men, were the best:
Kind husbands and mere nobles all the rest.
And, therefore in the name of dullness, be
The well-hung Balaam and cold Caleb free.
And canting Nadab let oblivion damn,
Who made new porridge for the Paschal Lamb.
Let friendship's holy band some names assu...Read more of this...
by Dryden, John

Astrophel and Stella

...all their deaths who for her bleed. 
VIII 

Loue, borne in Greece, of late fled from his natiue place,
Forc't, by a tedious proof, that Turkish hardned heart
Is not fit mark to pierce with his fine-pointed dart,
And pleas'd with our soft peace, staide here his flying race:
But, finding these north clymes too coldly him embrace,
Not vsde to frozen clips, he straue to find some part
Where with most ease and warmth he might employ his art;
At length he perch'd himself ...Read more of this...
by Sidney, Sir Philip

Captain Craig

...n way, 
That life grew marvelously different: 
What he had lately known for sullen trunks 
And branches, and a world of tedious leaves, 
Was all transmuted; a faint forest wind
That once had made the loneliest of all 
Sad sounds on earth, made now the rarest music; 
And water that had called him once to death 
Now seemed a flowing glory. And that man, 
Born to go down a soldier, did this thing.
Not much to do? Not very much, I grant you: 
Good occupation for a sonneteer, 
Or ...Read more of this...
by Robinson, Edwin Arlington

Endymion: Book III

...e,
Which kept as fixedly as rocky marge,
Till round his wither'd lips had gone a smile.
Then up he rose, like one whose tedious toil
Had watch'd for years in forlorn hermitage,
Who had not from mid-life to utmost age
Eas'd in one accent his o'er-burden'd soul,
Even to the trees. He rose: he grasp'd his stole,
With convuls'd clenches waving it abroad,
And in a voice of solemn joy, that aw'd
Echo into oblivion, he said:--

 "Thou art the man! Now shall I lay my head
In peace up...Read more of this...
by Keats, John


Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie

...hearts as tender and true, and spirits as loyal?
Here is Baptiste Leblanc, the notary's son, who has loved thee
Many a tedious year; come, give him thy hand and be happy!
Thou art too fair to be left to braid St. Catherine's tresses."
Then would Evangeline answer, serenely but sadly, "I cannot!
Whither my heart has gone, there follows my hand, and not elsewhere.
For when the heart goes before, like a lamp, and illumines the pathway,
Many things are made clear, that else lie ...Read more of this...
by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth

From The Testament of Beauty

...M,
yet not by Reason at Beauty; and now with many words
pleasing myself betimes I am fearing lest in the end
I play the tedious orator who maundereth on
for lack of heart to make an end of his nothings.
Wherefor as when a runner who hath run his round
handeth his staff away, and is glad of his rest,
here break I off, knowing the goal was not for me
the while I ran on telling of what cannot be told.

For not the Muse herself can tell of Goddes love;
which cometh to the child f...Read more of this...
by Bridges, Robert Seymour

Goblin Market

...ds
Would bid them cling together,
"For there is no friend like a sister,
In calm or stormy weather,
To cheer one on the tedious way,
To fetch one if one goes astray,
To lift one if one totters down,
To strengthen whilst one stands."...Read more of this...
by Rossetti, Christina

Paradise Lost: Book 05

...ut more train 
Accompanied than with his own complete 
Perfections; in himself was all his state, 
More solemn than the tedious pomp that waits 
On princes, when their rich retinue long 
Of horses led, and grooms besmeared with gold, 
Dazzles the croud, and sets them all agape. 
Nearer his presence Adam, though not awed, 
Yet with submiss approach and reverence meek, 
As to a superiour nature bowing low, 
Thus said. Native of Heaven, for other place 
None can than Heaven such...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Paradise Lost: Book 08

...nd received; but, in disparity 
The one intense, the other still remiss, 
Cannot well suit with either, but soon prove 
Tedious alike: Of fellowship I speak 
Such as I seek, fit to participate 
All rational delight: wherein the brute 
Cannot be human consort: They rejoice 
Each with their kind, lion with lioness; 
So fitly them in pairs thou hast combined: 
Much less can bird with beast, or fish with fowl 
So well converse, nor with the ox the ape; 
Worse then can man with be...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Paradise Lost: Book 09

...sedulous by nature to indite 
Wars, hitherto the only argument 
Heroick deem'd chief mastery to dissect 
With long and tedious havock fabled knights 
In battles feign'd; the better fortitude 
Of patience and heroick martyrdom 
Unsung; or to describe races and games, 
Or tilting furniture, imblazon'd shields, 
Impresses quaint, caparisons and steeds, 
Bases and tinsel trappings, gorgeous knights 
At joust and tournament; then marshall'd feast 
Serv'd up in hall with sewers an...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Paradise Regained: The Fourth Book

...uld'st tell, who thirst 
And hunger still. Then embassies thou shew'st
From nations far and nigh! What honour that,
But tedious waste of time, to sit and hear
So many hollow compliments and lies,
Outlandish flatteries? Then proceed'st to talk
Of the Emperor, how easily subdued,
How gloriously. I shall, thou say'st, expel
A brutish monster: what if I withal
Expel a Devil who first made him such?
Let his tormentor, Conscience, find him out; 
For him I was not sent, nor yet to f...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

The Alien Boy

...ke the whisp'ring of a million souls
Beneath the green-deep mourning.
Four long hours
The lorn Boy listen'd ! four long tedious hours
Pass'd wearily away, when, in the East
The grey beam coldly glimmer'd. All alone
Young HENRY stood aghast : his Eye wide fix'd;
While his dark locks, uplifted by the storm
Uncover'd met its fury. On his cheek
Despair sate terrible ! For, mid the woes,
Of poverty and toil, he had not known,
Till then, the horror-giving chearless hour
Of TOTAL SO...Read more of this...
by Robinson, Mary Darby

The Building of the Ship

...s fold, 
Leaping ever from rock to rock -- 
Spake, with accents mild and clear, 
Words of warning, words of cheer, 
But tedious to the bridegroom's ear. 
He knew the chart 
Of the sailor's heart, 
All its pleasures and its griefs, 
All its shallows and rocky reefs, 
All those secret currents, that flow 
With such resistless undertow, 
And lift and drift, with terrible force, 
The will from its moorings and its course. 
Therefore he spake, and thus said he: -- 
"Like unto ship...Read more of this...
by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth

The Eve Of St. Agnes

...uttress'd from moonlight, stands he, and implores
 All saints to give him sight of Madeline,
 But for one moment in the tedious hours,
 That he might gaze and worship all unseen;
Perchance speak, kneel, touch, kiss--in sooth such things have been.

 He ventures in: let no buzz'd whisper tell:
 All eyes be muffled, or a hundred swords
 Will storm his heart, Love's fev'rous citadel:
 For him, those chambers held barbarian hordes,
 Hyena foemen, and hot-blooded lords,
 Whose ver...Read more of this...
by Keats, John

The Four Ages of Man

...t to all Diseases, that's the truth,
4.104 Though some more incident to age, or youth;
4.105 And to conclude, I may not tedious be,
4.106 Man at his best estate is vanity.

Old Age. 

5.1 What you have been, ev'n such have I before,
5.2 And all you say, say I, and something more.
5.3 Babe's innocence, Youth's wildness I have seen,
5.4 And in perplexed Middle-age have been,
5.5 Sickness, dangers, and anxieties have past,
5.6 And on this Stage am come to act my last.
5.7 I have...Read more of this...
by Bradstreet, Anne

The Idiot Boy

...; And how she ran, and how she walked,  And all that to herself she talked,  Would surely be a tedious tale.   In high and low, above, below,  In great and small, in round and square,  In tree and tower was Johnny seen,  In bush and brake, in black and green,  'Twas Johnny, Johnny, every where.   She's past the bridge that's in the dale,  And now the thought torments h...Read more of this...
by Wordsworth, William

The Man Against the Sky

...ecause the weight of our humility, 
Wherefrom we gain 
A little wisdom and much pain,
Falls here too sore and there too tedious, 
Are we in anguish or complacency, 
Not looking far enough ahead 
To see by what mad couriers we are led 
Along the roads of the ridiculous,
To pity ourselves and laugh at faith 
And while we curse life bear it? 
And if we see the soul’s dead end in death, 
Are we to fear it? 
What folly is here that has not yet a name
Unless we say outright that we...Read more of this...
by Robinson, Edwin Arlington

The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

...ault at the end of which was a mill: thro' the mill 
we went, and came to a cave. down the winding cavern we groped
our tedious way till a void boundless as a nether sky appeard
beneath us & we held by the roots of trees and hung over this
immensity; but I said, if you please we will commit ourselves
to this void, and see whether providence is here also, if you
will not I will? but he answerd. do not presume O young-man but
as we here remain behold thy lot which will soon app...Read more of this...
by Blake, William

The Pleasures of Melancholy

...bird of woe
Oft interrupted; in embowering woods
By darksome brook to muse, and there forget
The solemn dulness of the tedious world,
While Fancy grasps the visionary fair:
And now no more th' abstracted ear attends
The water's murmuring lapse, th' entranced eye
Pierces no longer through th' extended rows
Of thick-ranged trees; till haply from the depth
The woodman's stroke, or distant tinkling team
Or heifers rustling through the brake, alarms
Th' illuded sense, and mars th...Read more of this...
by Warton, Thomas

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