Famous Virtues Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Virtues poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous virtues poems. These examples illustrate what a famous virtues poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Francesco Petrarch
[Pg 284] SONNET LVI. L' aura e l' odore e 'l refrigerio e l' ombra. HER OWN VIRTUES IMMORTALISE HER IN HEAVEN, AND HIS PRAISES ON EARTH. The air and scent, the comfort and the shadeOf my sweet laurel, and its flowery sight,That to my weary life gave rest and...Read more of this...
by
Anne Bronte
You may rejoice to think yourselves secure,
You may be grateful for the gift divine,
That grace unsought which made your black hearts pure
And fits your earthborn souls in Heaven to shine.
But is it sweet to look around and view
Thousands excluded from that happiness,
Which they deserve at least as much as you,
Their faults not greater nor their virtues less?
And...Read more of this...
by
William Butler Yeats
'What have I earned for all that work,' I said,
'For all that I have done at my own charge?
The daily spite of this unmannerly town,
Where who has served the most is most defaned,
The reputation of his lifetime lost
Between the night and morning. I might have lived,
And you know well how great the longing has been,
Where every day my footfall...Read more of this...
by
Francesco Petrarch
SONNET LXVII. Lasciato hai, Morte, senza sole il mondo. HER TRUE WORTH WAS KNOWN ONLY TO HIM AND TO HEAVEN. Death, thou the world, since that dire arrow sped,Sunless and cold hast left; Love weak and blind;Beauty and grace their brilliance have resign'd,And from my heavy heart all joy is fled;Honour...Read more of this...
by
Robert Burns
HOW cold is that bosom which folly once fired,
How pale is that cheek where the rouge lately glisten’d;
How silent that tongue which the echoes oft tired,
How dull is that ear which to flatt’ry so listen’d!
If sorrow and anguish their exit await,
From friendship and dearest affection remov’d;
How doubly severer, Maria, thy fate,
Thou diedst unwept, as thou...Read more of this...
by
Francesco Petrarch
CANZONE IV. Si è debile il filo a cui s' attene. HE GRIEVES IN ABSENCE FROM LAURA. The thread on which my weary life dependsSo fragile is and weak,If none kind succour lends,Soon 'neath the painful burden will it break;Since doom'd to take my sad farewell of her,In whom begins...Read more of this...
by
Emile Verhaeren
Opening the mists on a sudden through,
An Avenue!
Then, all one ferment of varied gold,
With foam of plumes where the chamfrom bends
Round his horse's head, that no bit doth hold,
St. George descends!
The diamond-rayed caparison,
Makes of his flight one declining path
From Heaven's pity down upon
Our waiting earth.
Hero and Lord
Of the joyous, helpful virtues all.
Sonorous, pure and crystalline!
Let his radiance fall
On my heart...Read more of this...
by
Robert Browning
Verse-making was least of my virtues: I viewed with despair
Wealth that never yet was but might be--all that verse-making were
If the life would but lengthen to wish, let the mind be laid bare.
So I said, "To do little is bad, to do nothing is worse"--
And made verse.
Love-making,--how simple a matter! No depths to explore,...Read more of this...
by
Alexander Pope
He said, and pass'd with sad presaging heart
To seek his spouse, his soul's far dearer part;
At home he sought her, but he sought in vain:
She, with one maid of all her menial train,
Had thence retir'd; and, with her second joy,
The young Astyanax, the hope of Troy,
Pensive she stood on Ilion's tow'ry height,
Beheld the war, and sicken'd at the sight;
There...Read more of this...
by
William Cullen Bryant
OH mother of a mighty race
Yet lovely in thy youthful grace!
The elder dames thy haughty peers
Admire and hate thy blooming years.
With words of shame 5
And taunts of scorn they join thy name.
For on thy cheeks the glow is spread
That tints thy morning hills with red;
Thy step¡ªthe wild deer's rustling feet...Read more of this...
by
Matthew Arnold
God knows it, I am with you. If to prize
Those virtues, priz'd and practis'd by too few,
But priz'd, but lov'd, but eminent in you,
Man's fundamental life: if to despise
The barren optimistic sophistries
Of comfortable moles, whom what they do
Teaches the limit of the just and true--
And for such doing have no need of eyes:
If sadness at teh long heart-wasting show
Wherein...Read more of this...
by
William Cullen Bryant
Oh! could I hope the wise and pure in heart
Might hear my song without a frown, nor deem
My voice unworthy of the theme it tries,--
I would take up the hymn to Death, and say
To the grim power, The world hath slandered thee
And mocked thee. On thy dim and shadowy brow
They place an iron crown, and call thee king
Of terrors,...Read more of this...
by
Francesco Petrarch
SONNET LXXII. Ripensando a quel ch' oggi il ciel onora. HE WOULD DIE OF GRIEF WERE SHE NOT SOMETIMES TO CONSOLE HIM BY HER PRESENCE. To that soft look which now adorns the skies,The graceful bending of the radiant head,[Pg 299]The face, the sweet angelic accents fled,That soothed me...Read more of this...
by
Victor Hugo
("Vous, sire, écoutez-moi.")
{LE ROI S'AMUSE, Act I.}
M. ST. VALLIER (an aged nobleman, from whom King Francis I.
decoyed his daughter, the famous beauty, Diana of
Poitiers).
A king should listen when his subjects speak:
'Tis true your mandate led me to the block,
Where pardon came upon me,...Read more of this...
by
Francesco Petrarch
SONNET CCX. Chi vuol veder quantunque può Natura. WHOEVER BEHOLDS HER MUST ADMIT THAT HIS PRAISES CANNOT REACH HER PERFECTION. Who wishes to behold the utmost mightOf Heaven and Nature, on her let him gaze,Sole sun, not only in my partial lays,But to the dark world, blind to virtue's light!Read more of this...
by
Sir Philip Sidney
Queen Virtue's court, which some call Stella's face,
Prepar'd by Nature's choicest furniture,
Hath his front built of alabaster pure;
Gold in the covering of that stately place.
The door by which sometimes comes forth her Grace
Red porphir is, which lock of pearl makes sure,
Whose porches rich (which name of cheeks endure)
Marble mix'd red and white...Read more of this...
by
Francesco Petrarch
SONNET XXVII. Soleano i miei pensier soavemente. HE COMFORTS HIMSELF WITH THE HOPE THAT SHE HEARS HIM. My thoughts in fair alliance and arrayHold converse on the theme which most endears:Pity approaches and repents delay:E'en now she speaks of us, or hopes, or fears.Since the last day, the terrible hour when...Read more of this...
by
Mary Darby Robinson
THE knell of death, that on the twilight gale,
Swells its deep murmur to the pensive ear;
In awful sounds repeats a mournful tale,
And claims the tribute of a tender tear.
The dreadful hour is past ! the mandate giv'n!
The gentle MIDDLETON shall breathe no more,
Yet who shall blame the wise decrees of Heaven,
Or the...Read more of this...
by
Omar Khayyam
Tell one by one my scanty virtues o'er;
As for my sins, forgive them by the score;
Let not my faults kindle Thy wrath to flame;
By blest Muhammad's tomb, forgive once more!...Read more of this...
by
Thomas Hood
She was a woman peerless in her station,
With household virtues wedded to her name;
Spotless in linen, grass-bleached in her fame;
And pure and clear-starched in her conversation;
Thence in my Castle of Imagination
She dwells for evermore, the dainty dame,
To keep all airy draperies from shame
And all dream furnitures in preservation:
There walketh she with...Read more of this...
by
Philip Larkin
When I was a child, I thought,
Casually, that solitude
Never needed to be sought.
Something everybody had,
Like nakedness, it lay at hand,
Not specially right or specially wrong,
A plentiful and obvious thing
Not at all hard to understand.
Then, after twenty, it became
At once more difficult to get
And more desired - though all the same
More undesirable; for what
You are alone has, to achieve
The rank...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
When they shall close my careless eyes
And look their last upon my face,
I fear that some will say: "her lies
A man of deep disgrace;
His thoughts were bare, his words were brittle,
He dreamed so much, he did so little.
When they shall seal y coffin lid
And this worn mask I know as ME,
Shall from the sight of man be hid
...Read more of this...
by
John Berryman
'All virtues enter into this world:')
A Buddhist, doused in the street, serenely burned.
The Secretary of State for War,
winking it over, screwed a redhaired whore.
Monsignor Capovilla mourned. What a week.
A journalism doggy took a leak
against absconding coon ('but take one virtue,
without which a man can hardly hold his own')
the sun in the willow
shivers itself & shakes itself green-yellow
(Abba Pimen groaned,...Read more of this...
by
Robert Burns
SAD thy tale, thou idle page,
And rueful thy alarms:
Death tears the brother of her love
From Isabella’s arms.
Sweetly deckt with pearly dew
The morning rose may blow;
But cold successive noontide blasts
May lay its beauties low.
Fair on Isabella’s morn
The sun propitious smil’d;
But, long ere noon, succeeding clouds
Succeeding hopes beguil’d.
Fate oft tears the bosom chords
That Nature...Read more of this...
by
Francesco Petrarch
CANZONE XI.[R] Mai non vo' più cantar, com' io soleva. ENIGMAS. Never more shall I sing, as I have sung:For still she heeded not; and I was scorn'd:So e'en in loveliest spots is trouble found.Unceasingly to sigh is no relief.Already on the Alp snow gathers round:Already...Read more of this...
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