Famous Insecure Poems by Famous Poets

These are examples of famous Insecure poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous insecure poems. These examples illustrate what a famous insecure poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).

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How firm Eternity must look

by Emily Dickinson
 How firm Eternity must look
To crumbling men like me
The only Adamant Estate
In all Identity --

How mighty to the insecure
Thy Physiognomy
To whom not any Face cohere --
Unless concealed in thee...Read more of this...

Their Height in Heaven comforts not --

by Emily Dickinson
 Their Height in Heaven comforts not --
Their Glory -- nought to me --
'Twas best imperfect -- as it was --
I'm finite -- I can't see --

The House of Supposition --
The Glimmering Frontier that
Skirts the Acres of Perhaps --
To Me -- shows insecure --

The Wealth I had -- contented me --
If 'twas a meaner size --
Then I had counted it...Read more of this...

On my volcano grows the Grass

by Emily Dickinson
 On my volcano grows the Grass
A meditative spot --
An acre for a Bird to choose
Would be the General thought --

How red the Fire rocks below --
How insecure the sod
Did I disclose
Would populate with awe my solitude....Read more of this...

The Boundaries Of Humanity

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 WHEN the primeval
All-holy Father
Sows with a tranquil hand
From clouds, as they roll,
Bliss-spreading lightnings
Over the earth,
Then do I kiss the last
Hem of his garment,
While by a childlike awe
Fiil'd is my breast.

For with immortals
Ne'er may a mortal
Measure himself.
If he soar upwards
And if he touch
With his forehead the stars,
Nowhere will rest then
His insecure feet,
And with him sport
Tempest and cloud.

Though with firm sinewy
Limbs...Read more of this...

With Due Respect To Thor

by Heather McHugh
 The dog has shrunk between the brake and clutch.
His shaking shakes a two-ton truck. From a God

so furious, he cannot hide his hide. Outside,
in the world at large, black hours are being

pearled and shafted. A tree stands out
spectacularly branched; the mind's eye

grows alert. This thing can hurt.
It had us once, it's having volts

of big idea again—about
thirteen a minute. Do...Read more of this...

Walking Around

by Pablo Neruda
 It so happens I am sick of being a man.
And it happens that I walk into tailorshops and movie
 houses
dried up, waterproof, like a swan made of felt
steering my way in a water of wombs and ashes.

The smell of barbershops makes me break into hoarse
 sobs.
The only thing I want is to lie still like stones or wool.
The only...Read more of this...

A Spirit Passed Before Me

by George (Lord) Byron
 From Job

A spirit passed before me: I beheld
The face of immortality unveiled— 
Deep sleep came down on every eye save mine— 
And there it stood,—all formless—but divine:
Along my bones the creeping flesh did quake;
And as my damp hair stiffened, thus it spake:

"Is man more just than God? Is man more pure
Than He who deems even Seraphs insecure?
Creatures of clay—vain...Read more of this...

The Clepington Catastrophe

by William Topaz McGonagall
 'Twas on a Monday morning, and in the year of 1884,
That a fire broke out in Bailie Bradford's store,
Which contained bales of jute and large quantities of waste,
Which the brave firemen ran to extinguish in great haste. 

They left their wives that morning without any dread,
Never thinking, at the burning pile, they would be killed dead
By the falling of...Read more of this...

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