33 SHORT BAROQUE POEMS BY GREAT AUTHORS - LITERATURE - 2025

The poems of the Baroque, artistic period of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, are characterized by eccentric, excessive and extravagant style, being also luxurious, ornamental, and ornate. Among the most prominent representatives are Luis de Góngora, Francisco de Quevedo, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz or Tirso de Molina.

The term "Baroque movement" is often used to refer to elaborate poetic styles, especially Gongorism, which derives from the work of the Spanish poet Luis de Góngora, and Marinism, which derives from the work of the Italian poet Giambattista Marino. It also encompasses metaphysical poetry in England and court scholastic poetry in Russia.

The forerunners of this style of prose wanted to surprise readers and make them admire their compositions through the use of rhetoric and double meanings, so it was sometimes difficult for them to make themselves understood fully. Baroque prose is often amorphous and full of heavy, didactic scholarship.

List of Baroque poems and their authors

Luis de Góngora: To a rose

Francisco de Quevedo: Defining love

Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz: Stop Shadow

Daniel Casper von Lohenstein: Song of Thetis

Jean-Baptiste Poquelin (Molière): Gallant Stays

Giambattista Marino: The Hand of Schidoni

Torquatto Tasso: The one I have loved the most

Christian Hoffmann von Hofmannswaldau: Description of Perfect Beauty

John Milton: When I think about how my light runs out

Andreas Gryphius: Tears of the Fatherland

Tirso de Molina: Triumph of Love

Make room, give entry,

that Love has been triumphing

in a mortal battle

in which it has been victorious.

Miguel de Cervantes: Amadía de Gaula to Don Quixote de la Mancha

You who despised the crying life

That I had absent and despised about

The great bank of the Peña Pobre, From joyous to reduced penance, You, to whom the eyes gave the drink

Of abundant liquor, though brackish, And raising you silver, tin and copper, Earth gave you food, Live sure that eternally, Meanwhile, at least, that in the fourth sphere, His horses pierce the blond Apollo, You will have clear renown of brave;

Your country will be the first in all;

Your wise author to the world alone and alone.

Lope de Vega: At Night

Night that makes charms,

crazy, imaginative, chimerical,

that shows the one who conquers his good in you,

the flat mountains and the dry seas;

dweller of hollow brains,

mechanic, philosopher, alchemist,

vile concealer, lynx without sight,

frightening of your own echoes;

shadow, fear, evil attributed to you,

solicitous, poet, sick, cold,

hands of the brave and feet of the fugitive.

Let him watch or sleep, half a life is yours;

If I watch, I pay you with the day,

and if I sleep, I don't feel what I live.

William Shakespeare: Spender of Charm

Spender of charm, why do you spend

your inheritance of beauty on yourself?

Nature lends and does not give away,

and, generous, lends to the generous.

Then, selfish beauty, why do you abuse

what was given to you to give?

Miser without profit, why do you use

such a large sum, if you cannot live?

By trading only with you like this, you

disappoint the sweetest of yourself.

When they call you to leave, what balance

can you let it be tolerable?

Your unused beauty will go to the grave;

used, it would have been your executor.

Pedro Calderón de la Barca: Life is a dream, Day III, Scene XIX

(Sigismund)

It is true then: we repress

this fierce condition,

this fury, this ambition,

in case we ever dream.

And yes we will, because we are

in such a unique world

that living is only dreaming;

And experience teaches me

that the man who lives dreams

what he is, until he wakes up.

The king dreams that he is king, and lives

with this deception, commanding,

arranging and ruling;

and this applause, which he

borrows, writes in the wind

and turns

death into ashes (strong misery!):

that there are those who try to reign

seeing that they have to wake up

in the dream of death!

The rich man dreams of his wealth,

that he offers him more care;

the poor man who suffers

his misery and poverty dreams;

The one who begins to thrive

dreams, the one who strives and pretends,

dreams the one who offends and offends,

and in the world, in conclusion,

everyone dreams what they are,

although no one understands it.

I dream that I am here,

these prisons loaded;

and I dreamed that in another

more flattering state I saw myself.

What is life? A frenzy.

What is life? An illusion,

a shadow, a fiction,

and the greatest good is small;

that all life is a dream,

and dreams are dreams.

Francisco de Quevedo: TO A NOSE

Once upon a man stuck a nose, once upon a superlative nose, once upon a time there was a sayón nose and write, Once upon a very bearded swordfish.

Once upon a wrong-faced sundial, once upon a thoughtful altar, there was an elephant face up, Ovidio Nasón was more narrated.

Once upon a spur of a galley, once upon a pyramid in Egypt, the twelve tribes of noses was.

Once upon a very infinite nose, a lot of nose, nose so fierce, that in the face of Annas it was a crime.

Lope de Vega: Who does not know about love

Who does not know about love lives among beasts;

Who has not wanted well, frightful beasts, Or if it is Narcissus of himself lover, Take back in the flattering waters.

Who in the flowers of his first age

He refuses love, he is not a man who is a diamond;

That it cannot be the one who is ignorant, He neither saw their mockery nor feared their truths.

Oh natural love! How good and bad

In good and in bad I praise and condemn you, And with life and death the same:

You are in a subject, bad and good, Or good to the one who loves you as a gift, And bad to the one who loves you for poison.

Luis de Góngora: Song to Córdoba

Oh lofty wall, oh crowned towers

plaque of honor, of majesty, of gallantry!

Oh great river, great king of Andalusia, of noble sands, since not golden!

Oh fertile plain, oh raised mountains, that privileges the sky and gilds the day!

Oh always glorious my homeland, as much for feathers as for swords!

If among those ruins and remains

that enriches Genil and Darro bathes

your memory was not my food, never deserve my absent eyes

see your wall, your towers and your river, your plain and sierra, oh homeland, oh flower of Spain!

Tirso de Molina: Not for nothing, love boy

Not for nothing, child love, they paint you blind.

For your effects are blind in vain:

a glove you gave to a barbarian villain, and you leave me burned in fire.

To have eyes, you will know later

that I am worthy of such a sovereign good, letting me kiss that hand, that a farmer won, expensive game!

The lack of your sight hurts me.

Love, you are blind, put on cravings;

You will see my bad, my unfortunate climate.

Would you give me that glove for spoils, that the farmer holds him in little esteem;

I will keep him in the apple of my eye.

Pedro Calderón de la Barca:

KING

Do you also so much baldonas

my power, what are you going ahead?

So quick of memory

that you were my vassal, miserable beggar, you erase?

POOR

Already finished your paper, in the locker room now

from the grave we are equal, what you were does not matter.

RICH

How do you forget that to me

did you ask for alms yesterday?

POOR

How do you forget that you

you didn't give it to me?

LOVELINESS

Do you already ignore

the estimate you owe me

for richer and more beautiful?

DISCRETION

In the locker room already

we are all alike, that in a poor shroud

there is no distinction of persons.

RICH

Are you going before me

villain?

LABRADOR

Leave the crazy

ambitions, already dead, of the sun that you were you are shadow.

RICH

I don't know what cows me

seeing the Author now.

POOR

Author of heaven and earth, and your entire company, what made of human life

that short comedy, to the big dinner, that you

you offered, it arrives; run

the curtains of your solio

those candid leaves.

Giambattista Marino: For being with you

I am lost, lady, among the people

without you, without me, without being, without God, without life:

without you because you are not served by me, without me because with you I am not present;

without being because of being being absent

there is nothing that does not say goodbye to being;

without God because my soul forgets God

for contemplating on you continuously;

lifeless because absent from his soul

no one lives, and if I am no longer deceased

It is in faith of waiting for your coming.

Oh beautiful eyes, precious light and soul, look at me again, you'll get me back to the point

to you, to me, to my being, my god, my life!

Vicente Espinel: Octaves

New effects of strange miracle

they are born of your courage, and beauty, some attentive to my grave damage, others to a brief good that does not last long:

Disappointment results from your courage, that his undoes him at random, but the face gifted and tender

promises glory in the middle of hell.

That beauty that I adore, and for whom I live

Sweet lady! in me it is luck, that the most terrible evil, harsh, elusive

into an immense glory it turns it.

But the severity of the haughty face, and that rigor equal to that of death

with just the thought, and the memory

promises hell amidst this glory.

And this fear that is born so cowardly

of your courage, and my distrust

the fire freezes, when it burns the most in me, and the wings bring down hope:

But your beauty comes showing off, banish fear, put confidence, gladdens the soul, and with eternal joy

promises glory in the middle of hell.

Well might, my gallant Nymph, lose your gravity of your right, and the perpetual rigor that grows in you

leave the white chest for a while:

that although it has your size, and gallantry

the world full of glory, and satisfied, that rigor, and notorious gravity, promises hell amidst this glory.

I turn my eyes to contemplate, and I look

the harsh rigor with which you treat me, of fear I tremble, and of pain I sigh

seeing the unreason with which you kill me:

Sometimes I burn, sometimes I withdraw

but all my attempts derail, that only one I don't know what of the inner chest

promises glory in the middle of hell.

Deny that the appearance of the gentleman

chest, which always shows itself in my favor, it doesn't lift me up to more than I'm worth, and thought trains new glory, I will never be able, if of reason I do not go out;

more is my so sinister fortune, that perverting the end of this victory

promises hell amidst this glory.

Vicente Espinel: In the April of my flowery years

In the April of my flowery years, when the tender hopes gave

of the fruit, which was rehearsed in my chest, to sing my goods, and my damages, I'm a human species, and disguised cloths

I was offered an idea, which was flying

with my desire the same, the more I walked, that I knew my deceptions from afar:

Because, although in the beginning they were the same

my pen, and its worth in competition

Taking each other in high flight

In a little while my senses saw, that to its ardor not making resistance

my feather, it burned, and fell to the ground.

Francois Malherbe: To Du Terrier, gentleman of Aix-En-Provence, on the death of his daughter

Your pain, Du Terrier, will it be eternal, and the sad ideas

that dictates to your mind the affection of a father

will never end?

The ruin of your daughter, who has gone down to the grave

for common death, Will it be a daze that your lost reason

of your foot does not retract?

I know of the charms that illustrated his childhood;

don't think I'm pretending, infamous Du Terrier, mitigate your heartbreak

lowering its brightness.

More was of this world, than the rare beauty

does not allocate kindness;

and, rose, she has lived what roses live, the time of a dawn.

And even taking for granted, according to your prayers, what would I have achieved

with silver hair finish his career, Would something have changed?

Even as an old woman entering the celestial mansion, Was there room for improvement?

Wouldn't I have suffered the funeral dust

and seeing me from the grave?

Baltasar Gracián: Sad not to have a friend

Sad thing is not having friends

but it must be sadder to have no enemies, because whoever has no enemies, a sign that

He has neither: neither talent that overshadows, nor courage that they fear, nor honor that they murmur to him, nor goods that they covet him, nor good thing that they envy to him.

Baltasar Gracián: The hero (fragment)

Oh well, educated man, pretender to heroism! Note the most important beauty, notice the most constant dexterity.

Greatness cannot be founded on sin, which is nothing, but on God, who is everything.

If mortal excellence is greed, eternal is ambition.

Being a hero of the world is little or nothing; being from heaven is a lot. To whose great monarch be praise, be honor, be glory.

Miguel de Cervantes: IN PRAISE OF THE ROSE

The one you chose in the garden

the jasmine, was not discreet, that does not have a perfect smell

if the jasmine withers.

But the rose to its end

because even his death is praised, has a sweeter and milder smell, more scent fragrance:

then better is the rose

and jasmine less süave.

You, what rose and jasmine you see, you choose the brief pomp

of jasmine, fragrant snow, that a breath to the zephyr is;

more knowing later

the haughty beautiful flattery

of the rose, careful

you will put it before your love;

which is the little flower jasmine, much fragrance the rose.

Torquato Tasso: Compare his beloved to the dawn

When the dawn comes out and her face looks

in the mirror of the waves; i feel

the green leaves whisper in the wind;

as in my chest the heart sighs.

I also look for my dawn; and if it turns to me

sweet look, I die of contentment;

I see the knots that in fleeing I am slow

and that make gold no longer admired.

But to the new sun in the serene sky

does not spill skein so hot

Titón's beautiful jealous friend.

Like glittering golden hair

that ornaments and crowns the snowy forehead

from which her rest stole from my breast.

Gregório de Matos Guerra: The vices

I am the one who in the past years

I sang with my cursing lyre

Brazilian clumsiness, vices and deceptions.

And well that I rested you so long, I sing again with the same lyre, the same issue on a different plectrum.

And I feel that it inflames me and inspires me

Talía, who is my guardian angel

since he sent Phoebus to assist me.

A sonnet tells me to do Violante

A sonnet tells me to do Violante,

which in my life I have seen myself in so much trouble;

fourteen verses say that it is a sonnet,

mocking, mocking, the three go ahead.

I thought I couldn't find a consonant

and I'm in the middle of another quartet,

but if I see myself in the first triplet,

there is nothing in the quartets that scares me.

for the first triplet I am entering,

and it seems that I entered with the right foot

because I end with this verse I am giving it.

I'm already in the second and I still suspect

that the thirteen verses are finishing:

count if there are fourteen and it's done.

Author: Lope de Vega.

They tell of a wise man that one day: a fragment of

They tell of a wise man that one day he was

so poor and miserable

that he only supported himself

on some herbs that he picked.

Is there another, among themselves he said,

poorer and sadder than me?

and when the face returned he

found the answer, seeing

that another sage was catching

the herbs that he threw.

Complaining about my fortune,

I lived in this world,

and when I said to myself:

Is there another person

of more importunate luck?

Pious you have answered me.

Well, coming back to my senses,

I find that my sorrows,

to make them joys,

you would have collected.

Author: Pedro Calderón de la Barca.

I saw the face of my late wife. Sonnet XXIII

I saw the face of my late wife,

returned, like Alceste, from death,

with which Hercules increased my luck,

livid and rescued from the grave.

Mine, unscathed, clean, splendid,

pure and saved by the law so strong,

and I contemplate her beautiful inert body

like the one in the sky where she rests.

In white she came to me all dressed,

covered her face, and managed to show me

that she was radiant in love and goodness.

How much shine, reflection of his life!

But alas! who leaned down to hug me

and I woke up and saw the day come back at night.

Author: John Milton.

Baroque poetry and its characteristics

Baroque poetry is characterized by:

• The use of complex metaphors based on the concept or principle of ingenuity, which requires unexpected combinations of ideas, images and distant representations. The metaphor used by the Baroque poets disregards the obvious similarities.
• The interest in religious and mystical themes, trying to find a spiritual meaning to the everyday and physical world. The baroque poets of the 17th century saw their work as a kind of meditation, bringing thought and feeling together in their verses. Some jobs were darker, viewing the world as a place of suffering and exploring spiritual torment.
• The use of satire to criticize politicians and the aristocracy. Baroque prose challenges conventional ideologies and exposes the changing naturalness of society and its values.
• The bold use of language. He is not afraid of language experiments. Baroque poetry is known for its flamboyance and dramatic intensity. It has a tendency towards darkness and fragmentation.

Other poems of interest

Poems of Romanticism.

Avant-garde poems.

Poems of the Renaissance.

Poems of Futurism.

Poems of Classicism.

Poems of Neoclassicism.

Poems of the Baroque.

Poems of Modernism.

Poems of Dadaism.

Cubist Poems.

References

1. A Poet's Glossary: ​​Baroque and the Plain Style by Edward Hirsch. Recovered from: blog.bestamericanpoetry.com.
2. Recovered from: encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com.
3. Bloom, H. (2005). Poets and Poems. Baltimore, Chelsea House Publishers.
4. Gillespie, G. (1971). German Baroque Poetry. New York, Twayne Publishers Inc.
5. Hirsch, E. (2017). The Essential Poet's Glossary. New York, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
6. Rivers, E. (1996). Renaissance and Baroque Poetry of Spain. Illinois, Waveland Press Inc.