Famous Misunderstood Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Misunderstood poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous misunderstood poems. These examples illustrate what a famous misunderstood poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Kipling, Rudyard
...scarred on the course.
Though Allah and Earth pardon Sin, remaineth forever Remorse.
XVIII.
"By all I am misunderstood!" if the Matron shall say, or the Maid:
"Alas! I do not understand," my son, be thou nowise afraid.
In vain in the sight of the Bird is the net of the Fowler displayed.
XIX.
My son, if I, Hafiz, the father, take hold of thy knees in my pain,
Demanding thy name on stamped paper, one day or one hour -- refrain.
Are the links of ...Read more of this...
by
Nash, Ogden
...rain was fertile, it wasn't arid,
And he remembered that Ferdinand was married,
And he thought, there is no wife like a misunderstood one,
Because if her husband thinks something is a terrible idea she is bound to think it a good one,
So he perfumed his handkerchief with bay rum and citronella,
And he went to see Isabella,
And he looked wonderful but he had never felt sillier,
And she said, I can't place the face but the aroma is familiar,
And Columbus didn't say a word,
All ...Read more of this...
by
Browning, Elizabeth Barrett
...e
Whose days eternally go on!
XXI
For us, —whatever's undergone,
Thou knowest, willest what is done,
Grief may be joy misunderstood;
Only the Good discerns the good.
I trust Thee while my days go on.
XXII
Whatever's lost, it first was won;
We will not struggle nor impugn.
Perhaps the cup was broken here,
That Heaven's new wine might show more clear.
I praise Thee while my days go on.
XXIII
I praise Thee while my days go on;
I love Thee while m...Read more of this...
by
Sexton, Anne
...ble goods;
fixed the suppers for the worms and the elves:
whining, rearranging the disaligned.
A woman like that is misunderstood.
I have been her kind.
I have ridden in your cart, driver,
waved my nude arms at villages going by,
learning the last bright routes, survivor
where your flames still bite my thigh
and my ribs crack where your wheels wind.
A woman like that is not ashamed to die.
I have been her kind....Read more of this...
by
Nicolson, Adela Florence Cory
...Hear the sound of the straining wood
Like a broken sob
Of a heart's distress,
Loving misunderstood.
She lies, with her loose hair spent in soft disorder,
On a silken sheet with a purple woven border,
Every cell of her brain is latent fire,
Every fibre tense with restrained desire.
And the straining oars sound clearer, clearer,
The boat is approaching nearer, nearer;
"How to wait through the mo...Read more of this...
by
Aiken, Conrad
...smoothed my hair with a faltering hand.
I started a feeble smile, but the smile was frozen:
Perhaps, I thought, I misunderstood.
Is it to be conceived that I could attract her—
This dull and futile flesh attract such fire?
I,—with a trowel's dullness in hand and brain!—
Take on some godlike aspect, rouse desire?
Incredible! . . . delicious! . . . I will wear
A brighter color of tie, arranged with care,
I will delight in god as I comb m...Read more of this...
by
Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...d, disgraced,
Call witness to their principles
And deprecate the lack of taste
Observing that hysteria
Might easily be misunderstood;
Mrs. Turner intimates
It does the house no sort of good.
But Doris, towelled from the bath,
Enters padding on broad feet,
Bringing sal volatile
And a glass of brandy neat....Read more of this...
by
Kipling, Rudyard
...For things we never mention,
For Art misunderstood --
For excellent intention
That did not turn to good;
From ancient tales' renewing,
From clouds we would not clear --
Beyond the Law's pursuing
We fled, and settled here.
We took no tearful leaving,
We bade no long good-byes;
Men talked of crime and thieving,
Men wrote of fraud and lies.
To save our injured feelings
'T was time a...Read more of this...
by
Lowell, Amy
...br> She arose
And stood beside him, trying to compose
Herself, all whipt to quivering, curdled life,
And he, poor fool, misunderstood his wife.
Suddenly, broken through her anxious grasp,
Her music-kindled love crashed on him there.
Amazed, he felt her fling against him, clasp
Her arms about him, weighing down his chair,
Sobbing out all her hours of despair.
"Theodore, a woman needs to hear things proved.
Unless you tell me, I feel I'm not loved."
Theodore...Read more of this...
by
Russell, George William
...wear the crown,
What made it wormlike in its mind?
Who bade it lay the sceptre down?
Was it through any speech of thee,
Misunderstood of Galilee?
The whip was cracked in Babylon
That slaves unto the gods might raise
The golden turrets nigh the sun.
Yet beggars from the dust might gaze
Upon the mighty builders’ art
And be of proud uplifted heart.
We now are servile to the mean
Who once were slaves unto the proud.
No lordlier life on earth has been
Although the ...Read more of this...
by
Blake, William
...ared so roundly to assert. that God spake to them;
and whether they did not think at the time, that they would be
misunderstood, & so be the cause of imposition.
Isaiah answer'd. I saw no God. nor heard any, in a finite
organical perception; but my senses discover'd the infinite in
every thing, and as I was then perswaded. & remain confirm'd;
that the voice of honest indignation is the voice of God, I cared
not for consequences but wrote.
Then I aske...Read more of this...
by
Levine, Philip
...to the corners
of creation. She prayed in Russian and Yiddish
to find her family in New York, prayers
unheard or misunderstood or perhaps ignored
by all the powers that swept the waves of darkness
before she woke, that kept "The Mercy" afloat
while smallpox raged among the passengers
and crew until the dead were buried at sea
with strange prayers in a tongue she could not fathom.
"The Mercy," I read on the yellowing pages of a book
I located in a windowless r...Read more of this...
by
Stafford, William
...town though tomorrow came:
there are things time passing can never make come true.
We live in an occupied country, misunderstood;
justice will take us millions of intricate moves.
Sirens wil hunt down Berky, you survivors in your beds
listening through the night, so far and good....Read more of this...
by
Gregory, Rg
...into the task that must have no nonsense about it
they have no truck with laziness or the idle hope
they can be easily misunderstood - their sourness
their association in sayings with the poorest of the lot
their way of squirting you in the eye when being cut
they don’t have much emollience in their nature
you can’t get that close to lemons - they stand firm
in their separate place asking to be respected - then
they will give what they’ve got like waxed nurses
offer you the...Read more of this...
by
Gregory, Rg
...into the task that must have no nonsense about it
they have no truck with laziness or the idle hope
they can be easily misunderstood - their sourness
their association in sayings with the poorest of the lot
their way of squirting you in the eye when being cut
they don’t have much emollience in their nature
you can’t get that close to lemons - they stand firm
in their separate place asking to be respected - then
they will give what they’ve got like waxed nurses
offer you the...Read more of this...
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