Famous Nameless Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A Letter From Li Po

...cliff.
The cataract roars downward. Boulders fall
Splitting the echoes from the mountain wall.
No voice, save when the nameless birds complain,
in stunted trees, female echoing male;
or, in the moonlight, the lost cuckoo's cry,
piercing the traveller's heart. Wayfarer from afar,
why are you here? what brings you here? why here?'

VII

Why here. Nor can we say why here. The peachtree bough
scrapes on the wall at midnight, the west wind
sculptures the wall of fog that slides
s...Read more of this...
by Aiken, Conrad


An Essay On Criticism

...me Beauties yet, no Precepts can declare,
For there's a Happiness as well as Care.
Musick resembles Poetry, in each
Are nameless Graces which no Methods teach,
And which a Master-Hand alone can reach.
If, where the Rules not far enough extend,
(Since Rules were made but to promote their End)
Some Lucky LICENCE answers to the full
Th' Intent propos'd, that Licence is a Rule.
Thus Pegasus, a nearer way to take,
May boldly deviate from the common Track.
Great Wits sometimes may ...Read more of this...
by Pope, Alexander

An Ode in Time of Hesitation

...vely the sunlight seems to grieve, 
And the spring-laden breeze 
Out of the gladdening west is sinister 
With sounds of nameless battle overseas; 
Though when we turn and question in suspense 
If these things be indeed after these ways, 
And what things are to follow after these, 
Our fluent men of place and consequence 
Fumble and fill their mouths with hollow phrase, 
Or for the end-all of deep arguments 
Intone their dull commercial liturgies -- 
I dare not yet believe! My...Read more of this...
by Moody, William Vaughn

Avons Harvest

...I said, 
“Say in what water it is that we are fishing. 
You that have reasons hidden in a well,
Not mentioning all your nameless friends that walk 
The streets and are not either dead or living 
For company, are surely, one would say 
To be forgiven if you may seem distraught— 
I mean distrait. I don’t know what I mean.
I only know that I am at your service, 
Always, yet with a special reservation 
That you may deem eccentric. All the same 
Unless your living dead man comes t...Read more of this...
by Robinson, Edwin Arlington

Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie

...her endless search and endeavor;
Sometimes in churchyards strayed, and gazed on the crosses and tombstones,
Sat by some nameless grave, and thought that perhaps in its bosom
He was already at rest, and she longed to slumber beside him.
Sometimes a rumor, a hearsay, an inarticulate whisper,
Came with its airy hand to point and beckon her forward.
Sometimes she spake with those who had seen her beloved and known him,
But it was long ago, in some far-off place or forgotten.
"Gab...Read more of this...
by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth


Human Life's Mystery

...evisions 
Of what we shall be?—intuitions 
Of what we are—in calms and storms, 
Beyond our peace and passions? 

Things nameless! which, in passing so, 
Do stroke us with a subtle grace. 
We say, ‘Who passes?’—they are dumb. 
We cannot see them go or come: 
Their touches fall soft, cold, as snow 
Upon a blind man’s face. 

Yet, touching so, they draw above 
Our common thoughts to Heaven’s unknown, 
Our daily joy and pain advance 
To a divine significance, 
Our human love—O mo...Read more of this...
by Browning, Elizabeth Barrett

In an Artists Studio

...hidden just behind those screens,
That mirror gave back all her loveliness.
A queen in opal or in ruby dress,
     A nameless girl in freshest summer-greens,
     A saint, an angel—every canvas means
The same one meaning, neither more nor less.
He feeds upon her face by day and night,
     And she with true kind eyes looks back on him,
Fair as the moon and joyful as the light:
     Not wan with waiting, not with sorrow dim;
No as she is, but was when hope shone brig...Read more of this...
by Rossetti, Christina

Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey

...easure; such, perhaps,
As have no slight or trivial influence
On that best portion of a good man's life,
His little, nameless, unremembered, acts
Of kindness and of love.  Nor less, I trust,
To them I may have owed another gift,
Of aspect more sublime; that blessed mood,
In which the burthen of the mystery,
In which the heavy and the weary weight
Of all this unintelligible world,
Is lightened—that serene and blessed mood,
In which the affections gently lead us on—
...Read more of this...
by Wordsworth, William

Ode to Beauty

...lling smile, thy witching art ? 
Thy lip, where balmy nectar glows; 
Thy cheek, where round the damask rose 
A thousand nameless Graces move, 
Thy mildly speaking azure eyes, 
Thy golden hair, where cunning Love 
In many a mazy ringlet lies? 
Soon as thy radiant form is seen, 
Thy native blush, thy timid mien, 
Thy hour is past ! thy charms are vain! 
ILL-NATURE haunts thee with her sallow train, 
Mean JEALOUSY deceives thy list'ning ear, 
And SLANDER stains thy cheek with ma...Read more of this...
by Emerson, Ralph Waldo

Passage to India

...all over; 
Bathe me, O God, in thee—mounting to thee, 
I and my soul to range in range of thee. 

O Thou transcendant!
Nameless—the fibre and the breath! 
Light of the light—shedding forth universes—thou centre of them! 
Thou mightier centre of the true, the good, the loving! 
Thou moral, spiritual fountain! affection’s source! thou reservoir! 
(O pensive soul of me! O thirst unsatisfied! waitest not there?
Waitest not haply for us, somewhere there, the Comrade perfect?) 
Th...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

Salut au Monde

...he earth—grass grows upon them, and blossoms and corn; 
I see the tracks of ancient and modern expeditions. 

I see the nameless masonries, venerable messages of the unknown events, heroes, records of
 the
 earth. 

I see the places of the sagas;
I see pine-trees and fir-trees torn by northern blasts; 
I see granite boulders and cliffs—I see green meadows and lakes; 
I see the burial-cairns of Scandinavian warriors; 
I see them raised high with stones, by the marge of restles...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

She Walks in Beauty

...that tender light 
Which Heaven to gaudy day denies. 

One shade the more, one ray the less, 
Had half impaired the nameless grace 
Which waves in every raven tress, 
Or softly lightens o'er her face; 
Where thoughts serenely sweet express, 
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place. 

And on that cheek, and o'er that brow, 
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent, 
The smiles that win, the tints that glow, 
But tell of days in goodness spent, 
A mind at peace with all bel...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)

The Ballad of the White Horse

...ates of heaven are lightly locked,
We do not guard our gold,
Men may uproot where worlds begin,
Or read the name of the nameless sin;
But if he fail or if he win
To no good man is told.

"The men of the East may spell the stars,
And times and triumphs mark,
But the men signed of the cross of Christ
Go gaily in the dark.

"The men of the East may search the scrolls
For sure fates and fame,
But the men that drink the blood of God
Go singing to their shame.

"The wise men know w...Read more of this...
by Chesterton, G K

The Bride of Abydos

...cheek, his sinking heart confess 
The might — the majesty of Loveliness? 
Such was Zuleika — such around her shone 
The nameless charms unmark'd by her alone; 
The light of love, the purity of grace, 
The mind, the Music breathing from her face, [6] 
The heart whose softness harmonised the whole — 
And, oh! that eye was in itself a Soul! 

Her graceful arms in meekness bending 
Across her gently-budding breast; 
At one kind word those arms extending 
To clasp the neck of him ...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)

The Dance Of Death

...hing decked in folly! they 

Who laugh and name you a Caricature, 
They see not, they whom flesh and blood allure, 
The nameless grace of every bleached, bare bone, 
That is most dear to me, tall skeleton! 

Come you to trouble with your potent sneer 
The feast of Life! or are you driven here, 
To Pleasure's Sabbath, by dead lusts that stir 
And goad your moving corpse on with a spur? 

Or do you hope, when sing the violins, 
And the pale candle-flame lights up our sins, 
To ...Read more of this...
by Baudelaire, Charles

The Growth of Love

...ome fancied shame or fear,
Bred of disease or melancholy fate,
Hath driven the owner from his rightful sphere
To wander nameless save to pity or hate: 
What is the wreck of all he hath in fief
When he that hath is wrecking? nought is fine
Unto the sick, nor doth it burden grief
That the house perish when the soul doth pine.
Thus I my state despise, slain by a sting
So slight 'twould not have hurt a meaner thing. 

15
Who builds a ship must first lay down the keel
Of health, w...Read more of this...
by Bridges, Robert Seymour

The Lady of the Lake

...sound.
     As on the noblest of the land
     Fell the stern headsmen's bloody hand,—
     The dungeon, block, and nameless tomb
     Prepare—for Douglas seeks his doom!
     But hark! what blithe and jolly peal
     Makes the Franciscan steeple reel?
     And see! upon the crowded street,
     In motley groups what masquers meet!
     Banner and pageant, pipe and drum,
     And merry morrice-dancers come.
     I guess, by all this quaint array,
     The burgher...Read more of this...
by Scott, Sir Walter

The Man Against the Sky

...seemed half ready with him to go down, 
Flame-bitten and flame-cleft, 
As if there were to be no last thing left 
Of a nameless unimaginable town,— 
Even he who climbed and vanished may have taken 
Down to the perils of a depth not known, 
From death defended though by men forsaken, 
The bread that every man must eat alone; 
He may have walked while others hardly dared 
Look on to see him stand where many fell; 
And upward out of that, as out of hell, 
He may have sung and s...Read more of this...
by Robinson, Edwin Arlington

The Raven

...rcease of sorrow—sorrow for the lost Lenore—
For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore—
            Nameless here for evermore.

    And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
Thrilled me—filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;
    So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating
    “’Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door—
Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door;—
  ...Read more of this...
by Poe, Edgar Allan

The Triumph Of Fame

...Pg 390]O fair Bethulian! can my vagrant songO'erpass thy virtues in the nameless throng,When he that sought to lure thee to thy shamePaid with his sever'd head his frantic flame?Can Ninus be forgot, whose ancient nameBegins the long roll of imperial fame?And he whose pride, by Heaven's imperial doom,Read more of this...
by Petrarch, Francesco

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