There's quite a bit going on in Samuel Johnson's The Vanity of Human Wishes. While the title and tone isn't cheery I didnt find the poem necessarily depressing. Ok so it is depressing but I was able to obtain detachment from it due to its organization. Which I find very interesting. Indentations indicate topics Johnson is addressing. These topics include particular people from recent English history and also personifications of human attributes, vices, and concepts. An example that stuck out to me was a pair of stanzas/paragraphs that deal with greed and power. Lines 21 through 36. Each of these can be considered poems in their own right.
The first, a treatise on gold's effect on men. "For gold his sword the hireling ruffian draws/ For gold the hireling judge distorts the laws." Notice in two lines johnson appears to encompass the entire human spectrum. While there are more than judges and mercenaries he gets the point across that all or most men are affected by it. He ends it with the point that "The dangers gather as the treasures rise." Not necessarily that money is the root of all evil but that it causes danger and difficulty and only increase with wealth.
In the second Johnson deals with the power structure and the aristocracy of feudal pull. My favorite point in here is "How much more safe the vassal than the lord." It fits exceptionally well with the point he makes in the last stanza. The higher you rise the more dangerous position you are in. Thus exemplifying the vanity of human wishes. Another tidbit in this paragraph is the "skulking hind," who, while safer than the vassal and lord, is still subject to confiscation.
These two stanzas make up perhaps 5% of Johnson's poem. But there is so much in them. And that is how the entire poem is. There is no filler. It is the wildest dream of a content analyst. And thats why I like it.