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Best Famous Ungloved Poems

Here is a collection of the all-time best famous Ungloved poems. This is a select list of the best famous Ungloved poetry. Reading, writing, and enjoying famous Ungloved poetry (as well as classical and contemporary poems) is a great past time. These top poems are the best examples of ungloved poems.

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Written by John Greenleaf Whittier | Create an image from this poem

The Sycamores

 In the outskirts of the village 
On the river's winding shores 
Stand the Occidental plane-trees, 
Stand the ancient sycamores. 

One long century hath been numbered, 
And another half-way told 
Since the rustic Irish gleeman 
Broke for them the virgin mould. 

Deftly set to Celtic music 
At his violin's sound they grew, 
Through the moonlit eves of summer, 
Making Amphion's fable true. 

Rise again, thou poor Hugh Tallant! 
Pass in erkin green along 
With thy eyes brim full of laughter, 
And thy mouth as full of song. 

Pioneer of Erin's outcasts 
With his fiddle and his pack- 
Little dreamed the village Saxons 
Of the myriads at his back. 

How he wrought with spade and fiddle, 
Delved by day and sang by night, 
With a hand that never wearied 
And a heart forever light,--- 

Still the gay tradition mingles 
With a record grave and drear 
Like the rollic air of Cluny 
With the solemn march of Mear. 

When the box-tree, white with blossoms, 
Made the sweet May woodlands glad, 
And the Aronia by the river 
Lighted up the swarming shad, 

And the bulging nets swept shoreward 
With their silver-sided haul, 
Midst the shouts of dripping fishers, 
He was merriest of them all. 

When, among the jovial huskers 
Love stole in at Labor's side 
With the lusty airs of England 
Soft his Celtic measures vied. 

Songs of love and wailing lyke-wake 
And the merry fair's carouse; 
Of the wild Red Fox of Erin 
And the Woman of Three Cows, 

By the blazing hearths of winter 
Pleasant seemed his simple tales, 
Midst the grimmer Yorkshire legends 
And the mountain myths of Wales. 

How the souls in Purgatory 
Scrambled up from fate forlorn 
On St. Keven's sackcloth ladder 
Slyly hitched to Satan's horn. 

Of the fiddler who at Tara 
Played all night to ghosts of kings; 
Of the brown dwarfs, and the fairies 
Dancing in their moorland rings! 

Jolliest of our birds of singing 
Best he loved the Bob-o-link. 
"Hush!" he'd say, "the tipsy fairies! 
Hear the little folks in drink!" 

Merry-faced, with spade and fiddle, 
Singing through the ancient town, 
Only this, of poor Hugh Tallant 
Hath Tradtion handed down. 

Not a stone his grave discloses; 
But if yet his spirit walks 
Tis beneath the trees he planted 
And when Bob-o-Lincoln talks. 

Green memorials of the gleeman! 
Linking still the river-shores, 
With their shadows cast by sunset 
Stand Hugh Tallant's sycamores! 

When the Father of his Country 
Through the north-land riding came 
And the roofs were starred with banners, 
And the steeples rang acclaim,--- 

When each war-scarred Continental 
Leaving smithy, mill,.and farm, 
Waved his rusted sword in welcome, 
And shot off his old king's-arm,--- 

Slowly passed that august Presence 
Down the thronged and shouting street; 
Village girls as white as angels 
Scattering flowers around his feet. 

Midway, where the plane-tree's shadow 
Deepest fell, his rein he drew: 
On his stately head, uncovered, 
Cool and soft the west-wind blew. 

And he stood up in his stirrups, 
Looking up and looking down 
On the hills of Gold and Silver 
Rimming round the little town,--- 

On the river, full of sunshine, 
To the lap of greenest vales 
Winding down from wooded headlands, 
Willow-skirted, white with sails. 

And he said, the landscape sweeping 
Slowly with his ungloved hand 
"I have seen no prospect fairer 
In this goodly Eastern land." 

Then the bugles of his escort 
Stirred to life the cavalcade: 
And that head, so bare and stately 
Vanished down the depths of shade. 

Ever since, in town and farm-house, 
Life has had its ebb and flow; 
Thrice hath passed the human harvest 
To its garner green and low. 

But the trees the gleeman planted, 
Through the changes, changeless stand; 
As the marble calm of Tadmor 
Mocks the deserts shifting sand. 

Still the level moon at rising 
Silvers o'er each stately shaft; 
Still beneath them, half in shadow, 
Singing, glides the pleasure craft; 

Still beneath them, arm-enfolded, 
Love and Youth together stray; 
While, as heart to heart beats faster, 
More and more their feet delay. 

Where the ancient cobbler, Keezar, 
On the open hillside justice wrought, 
Singing, as he drew his stitches, 
Songs his German masters taught. 

Singing, with his gray hair floating 
Round a rosy ample face,--- 
Now a thousand Saxon craftsmen 
Stitch and hammer in his place. 

All the pastoral lanes so grassy 
Now are Traffic's dusty streets; 
From the village, grown a city, 
Fast the rural grace retreats. 

But, still green and tall and stately, 
On the river's winding shores, 
Stand the occidental plane-trees, 
Stand Hugh Tallant's sycamores.


Written by Sidney Lanier | Create an image from this poem

The Tournament

 Joust First.


I.

Bright shone the lists, blue bent the skies,
And the knights still hurried amain
To the tournament under the ladies' eyes,
Where the jousters were Heart and Brain.

II.

Flourished the trumpets: entered Heart,
A youth in crimson and gold.
Flourished again: Brain stood apart,
Steel-armored, dark and cold.

III.

Heart's palfrey caracoled gayly round,
Heart tra-li-ra'd merrily;
But Brain sat still, with never a sound,
So cynical-calm was he.

IV.

Heart's helmet-crest bore favors three
From his lady's white hand caught;
While Brain wore a plumeless casque; not he
Or favor gave or sought.

V.

The herald blew; Heart shot a glance
To find his lady's eye,
But Brain gazed straight ahead his lance
To aim more faithfully.

VI.

They charged, they struck; both fell, both bled.
Brain rose again, ungloved,
Heart, dying, smiled and faintly said,
"My love to my beloved!"

____
Camp French, Wilmington, N.C., May, 1862.



Joust Second.


I.

A-many sweet eyes wept and wept,
A-many bosoms heaved again;
A-many dainty dead hopes slept
With yonder Heart-knight prone o' the plain.

II.

Yet stars will burn through any mists,
And the ladies' eyes, through rains of fate,
Still beamed upon the bloody lists
And lit the joust of Love and Hate.

III.

O strange! or ere a trumpet blew,
Or ere a challenge-word was given,
A knight leapt down i' the lists; none knew
Whether he sprang from earth or heaven.

IV.

His cheek was soft as a lily-bud,
His grey eyes calmed his youth's alarm;
Nor helm nor hauberk nor even a hood
Had he to shield his life from harm.

V.

No falchion from his baldric swung,
He wore a white rose in its place.
No dagger at his girdle hung,
But only an olive-branch, for grace.

VI.

And "Come, thou poor mistaken knight,"
Cried Love, unarmed, yet dauntless there,
"Come on, God pity thee! -- I fight
Sans sword, sans shield; yet, Hate, beware!"

VII.

Spurred furious Hate; he foamed at mouth,
His breath was hot upon the air,
His breath scorched souls, as a dry drought
Withers green trees and burns them bare.

VIII.

Straight drives he at his enemy,
His hairy hands grip lance in rest,
His lance it gleams full bitterly,
God! -- gleams, true-point, on Love's bare breast!

IX.

Love's grey eyes glow with a heaven-heat,
Love lifts his hand in a saintly prayer;
Look! Hate hath fallen at his feet!
Look! Hate hath vanished in the air!

X.

Then all the throng looked kind on all;
Eyes yearned, lips kissed, dumb souls were freed;
Two magic maids' hands lifted a pall
And the dead knight, Heart, sprang on his steed.

XI.

Then Love cried, "Break me his lance, each knight!
Ye shall fight for blood-athirst Fame no more!"
And the knights all doffed their mailed might
And dealt out dole on dole to the poor.

XII.

Then dove-flights sanctified the plain,
And hawk and sparrow shared a nest.
And the great sea opened and swallowed Pain,
And out of this water-grave floated Rest!
Written by Philip Levine | Create an image from this poem

Night Words

 after Juan Ramon 


A child wakens in a cold apartment. 
The windows are frosted. Outside he hears 
words rising from the streets, words he cannot 
understand, and then the semis gear down 
for the traffic light on Houston. He sleeps 
again and dreams of another city 
on a high hill above a wide river 
bathed in sunlight, and the dream is his life 
as he will live it twenty years from now. 
No, no, you say, dreams do not work that way, 
they function otherwise. Perhaps in the world 
you're right, but on Houston tonight two men 
are trying to change a tire as snow gathers 
on their shoulders and scalds their ungloved hands. 
The older one, the father, is close to tears, 
for he's sure his son, who's drunk, is laughing 
secretly at him for all his failures 
as a man and a father, and he is 
laughing to himself but because he's happy 
to be alone with his father as he was 
years ago in another life where snow 
never fell. At last he slips the tire iron 
gently from his father's grip and kneels 
down in the unstained snow and unbolts the wheel 
while he sings of drinking a glass of wine, 
the black common wine of Alicante, 
in raw sunlight. Now the father joins in, 
and the words rise between the falling flakes 
only to be transformed into the music 
spreading slowly over the oiled surface 
of the river that runs through every child's dreams.

Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry