Famous Moralist Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Moralist poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous moralist poems. These examples illustrate what a famous moralist poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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...th' unlettered Muse,
The place of fame and elegy supply:
And many a holy text around she strews,
That teach the rustic moralist to die.
For who, to dumb Forgetfulness a prey,
This pleasing anxious being e'er resigned,
Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day,
Nor cast one longing ling'ring look behind?
On some fond breast the parting soul relies,
Some pious drops the closing eye requires;
Ev'n from the tomb the voice of Nature cries,
Ev'n in our ashes live their won...Read more of this...
by
Gray, Thomas
...he huge
vastidity of its essence, is fritter'd away
in observation of the usual habits of men;
as happ'd with the great moralist, where his book saith
that ther can be no friendship betwixt God and man
because of their unlimited disparity.
From this dilemma of pagan thought, this poison of faith,
Man-soul made glad escape in the worship of Christ;
for his humanity is God's Personality,
and communion with him is the life of the soul.
Of which living ideas (when in the ...Read more of this...
by
Bridges, Robert Seymour
...nd reviling you persist,
Calling me infidel and atheist:
My errors I will not deny, but yet
Does foul abuse become a moralist?...Read more of this...
by
Khayyam, Omar
...I laugh,
Yet being sound and hale,
I find the best of drinks to quaff
Is good old Adam's ale.
I do not like your moralist,
Who with a righteous grin
Informs you o'er a pounding fist:
"Unchastity is sin."
I don't believe it, but I grant,
By every human test,
From parson, pimp and maiden aunt,
Morality is best.
Yet what a bore our lives would be
If we lived as we should;
It's such a blessing to be free,
And not be over-good.
I value virtues great and s...Read more of this...
by
Service, Robert William
...t a table, guzzling?
How did you feel, Ben Pantier, and the rest of you,
Who almost stoned me for a tyrant,
Garbed as a moralist,
And as a wry-faced ascetic frowning upon Yorkshire pudding,
Roast beef and ale and good will and rosy cheer --
Things you never saw in a grog-shop in your life?
How did you feel after I was dead and gone,
And your goddess, Liberty, unmasked as a strumpet,
Selling out the streets of Spoon River
To the insolent giants
Who manned the saloons from afar...Read more of this...
by
Masters, Edgar Lee
...Age, their airy dance
They leave, in dust to rest.
Methinks I hear, in accents low,
The sportive kind reply:
Poor moralist! and what art thou?
A solitary fly!
Thy joys no glittering female meets,
No hive hast thou of hoarded sweets,
No painted plumage to display:
On hasty wings thy youth is flown;
Thy sun is set, thy spring is gone—
We frolic while 'tis May....Read more of this...
by
Gray, Thomas
...carries loads, and feeds on thistles.
Our author's meaning, I presume, is
A creature bipes et implumis;
Wherein the moralist design'd
A compliment on human kind:
For here he owns, that now and then
Beasts may degenerate into men....Read more of this...
by
Swift, Jonathan
...e possess'd these silent bow'rs,
Her animating smile withdrawn,
Has lost its beauties and its pow'rs.
The saint or moralist should tread
This moss-grown alley, musing, slow;
They seek, like me, the secret shade,
But not, like me, to nourish woe!
Me fruitful scenes and prospects waste
Alike admonish not to roam;
These tell me of enjoyments past,
And those of sorrows yet to come....Read more of this...
by
Cowper, William
...Are the sports of our youth so displeasing?
Is love but the folly you say?
Benumbed with the winter, and freezing,
You scold at the revels of May.
For you once a nymph had her charms,
And Oh! when the waltz you were wreathing,
All Olympus embraced in your arms--
All its nectar in Julia's breathing.
If Jove at that moment had hurled
The earth in s...Read more of this...
by
Schiller, Friedrich von
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