Epigram

Because I am idolatrous and have besought,
With grievous supplication and consuming prayer,
The admirable image that my dreams have wrought
Out of her swan's neck and her dark, abundant hair:
The jealous gods, who brook no worship save their own,
Turned my live idol marble and her heart to stone.

Ernest Christopher Dowson

Ernest Christopher Dowson, a notable English poet of the late 19th century, was associated with the Decadent movement. Renowned for his melancholic and evocative verse, he significantly influenced 20th-century literature. Despite struggling with poverty and alcoholism, Dowson's work, including the famous phrase "days of wine and roses," endures. He faced immense personal tragedies, losing both parents within a year, which plunged him into deeper despair. Dowson's legacy persists through his deeply moving poetry that captures the fragility of life and love.

Ernest Christopher Dowson

Amor Profanus

Ernest Christopher Dowson, Simple Poetry

Transition

Ernest Christopher Dowson, Simple Poetry

Yvonne Of Brittany

Ernest Christopher Dowson, Simple Poetry

Villanelle Of The Poet's Road

Ernest Christopher Dowson, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

Epigram. Auri Sacra Fames.

I knew a being once, his peaked head
With a few lank and greasy hairs was spread;
His visage blue, in length was like your own
Seen in the convex of a table-spoon.
His mouth, or rather gash athwart his face,
To stop at either ear had just the grace,
A hideous rift: his teeth were all canine,
And just like Death's (in Milton) was his grin.
One shilling, and one fourteen-penny leg,
(This shorter was than that, and not so big),
He had; and they, when meeting at his knees,
An angle formed of ninety-eight degrees.
Nature, in scheming how his back to vary,
A hint had taken from the dromedary:
His eyes an inward, screwing vision threw,
Striving each other through his nose to view.

His intellect was just one ray above
The idiot Cymon's ere he fell in love.<...

Thomas Gent

Epigram.

A Bishop, by his neighbours hated,
Has cause to wish himself translated:
But why should Hough desire translation,
Loved and esteem'd by all the nation?
Yet, if it be the old man's case,
I'll lay my life I know the place:
'Tis where God sent some that adore Him,
And whither Enoch went before him.

Alexander Pope

Seraphita

Come not before me now, O visionary face!
Me tempest-tost, and borne along life's passionate sea;
Troublous and dark and stormy though my passage be;
Not here and now may we commingle or embrace,
Lest the loud anguish of the waters should efface
The bright illumination of thy memory,
Which dominates the night; rest, far away from me,
In the serenity of thine abiding place!

But when the storm is highest, and the thunders blare,
And sea and sky are riven, O moon of all my night!
Stoop down but once in pity of my great despair,
And let thine hand, though over late to help, alight
But once upon my pale eyes and my drowning hair,
Before the great waves conquer in the last vain fight.

Ernest Christopher Dowson

Epigram On Hearing A Lady Talk Very Fast And Unintelligibly

Words upon words impetuous rush along,
And tread each other's brains out as they throng.

    *        *        *        *        *

'Admire my wife! did ever mortal eyes'
Cornuto, in a rapture, boasting cries
'Such a fine set of teeth of ivory view?
And such a fine complexion's ivory hue?
Fool! hide thy head! both her and thee we scorn:
Oft the wife's ivory makes the husband's horn.

    *        *        *        *        *

I'm told Sir Pigmy mimics me; what then?
Don't we all know that monkies mimic men?
'I cannot say your poem I admire;
It wants originality and fire;
Besides, I find it, by no means, correct;
You've written it in haste, I should suspect,'
"What! do you think me then a jackass, pray?"
'I shall think so if you so lou...

Thomas Oldham

Epigram On Hearing A Clergyman Preach A Dull Sermon In A Loud, Shrill Voice

Still, still his bell-like voice rings through my head;
Yet not one bright thought cheers my mental view;
O! would that I were deaf, asleep, or dead!
Ye marble statues! how I envy you!

    *        *        *        *        *

To hear him preach the Methodistic creed,
What eager crowds to Ranter's chapel speed!
His eloquence the harden'd sinner frightens;
Like heaven itself says Fame, he thunders, lightens.
I go to hear him; Fame has made a blunder;
I see no lightning, though I hear the thunder.

For flowery sermons Doctor Drudge
    Of preachers at the top is;
If from their influence we may judge,
    His flowers are only poppies.

    *        *        *        *        *

Sir! you're both fool and knave! to Frank, Blunt cries

Thomas Oldham

To His Friend The Author, John Hoddesdon, On His Divine Epigrams.

    Thou hast inspired me with thy soul, and I
    Who ne'er before could ken of poetry,
    Am grown so good proficient, I can lend
    A line in commendation of my friend.
    Yet 'tis but of the second hand; if ought
    There be in this, 'tis from thy fancy brought.
    Good thief, who dar'st, Prometheus-like, aspire,
    And fill thy poems with celestial fire:
    Enliven'd by these sparks divine, their rays
    Add a bright lustre to thy crown of bays.
    Young eaglet, who thy nest thus soon forsook,
    So lofty and divine a course hast took
    As all admire, before the down begin
    To peep, as yet, upon thy smoother chin;
    And, making heaven thy aim, hast had the grace
    To look the Sun of righteousness i' the face.
    What may we hope, if th...

John Dryden