Famous Nonchalance Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Captain Craig

...the Brahmin sings; 
O Fuscus! and we’ll go no more a-roving.” 
We were not quite accoutred for a blast 
Of any lettered nonchalance like that,
And some of us—the five or six of us 
Who found him out—were singularly struck. 
But soon there came assurance of his lips, 
Like phrases out of some sweet instrument 
Man’s hand had never fitted, that he felt
“No penitential shame for what had come, 
No virtuous regret for what had been,— 
But rather a joy to find it in his life 
To b...Read more of this...
by Robinson, Edwin Arlington


Ego Dominus Tuus

...an image.

Ille. That is our modern hope, and by its light
We have lit upon the gentle, sensitive mind
And lost the old nonchalance of the hand;
Whether we have chosen chisel, pen or brush,
We are but critics, or but half create,
Timid, entangled, empty and abashed,
Lacking the countenance of our friends.

Hic. And yet
The chief imagination of Christendom,
Dante Alighieri, so utterly found himself
That he has made that hollow face of his
More plain to the mind's eye than any ...Read more of this...
by Yeats, William Butler

Exposure

...ack with snow,
With sidelong flowing flakes that flock, pause and renew,
We watch them wandering up and down the wind's nonchalance,
 But nothing happens.


 II

Pale flakes with lingering stealth come feeling for our faces --
We cringe in holes, back on forgotten dreams, and stare, snow-dazed,
Deep into grassier ditches. So we drowse, sun-dozed,
Littered with blossoms trickling where the blackbird fusses.
 Is it that we are dying?

Slowly our ghosts drag home: glimpsing the ...Read more of this...
by Owen, Wilfred

Introspective Reflection

...I would live all my life in nonchalance and insouciance
Were it not for making a living, which is rather a nouciance....Read more of this...
by Nash, Ogden

Lancelot

...nce, 
And in her eyes there was a flickering
Of a still fear that would not be veiled wholly 
With any mask of mannered nonchalance. 
“What has he done? Madam, attend your nephew; 
And learn from him, in your incertitude, 
That this inordinate man Lancelot,
This engine of renown, this hewer down daily 
Of potent men by scores in our late warfare, 
Has now inside his head a foreign fever 
That urges him away to the last edge 
Of everything, there to efface himself
In ecstasy, ...Read more of this...
by Robinson, Edwin Arlington


On this long storm the Rainbow rose

...r nests --
The gales -- indeed -- were done --
Alas, how heedless were the eyes --
On whom the summer shone!

The quiet nonchalance of death --
No Daybreak -- can bestir --
The slow -- Archangel's syllables
Must awaken her!...Read more of this...
by Dickinson, Emily

One Hour to Madness and Joy

...t! 
O to be absolv’d from previous ties and conventions—I from mine, and you from
 yours! 
O to find a new unthought-of nonchalance with the best of nature!
O to have the gag remov’d from one’s mouth! 
O to have the feeling, to-day or any day, I am sufficient as I am! 

O something unprov’d! something in a trance! 
O madness amorous! O trembling! 
O to escape utterly from others’ anchors and holds!
To drive free! to love free! to dash reckless and dangerous! 
To court destruc...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

Poem of Joys

...ure, prison, popular odium, death, face to face! 
To mount the scaffold! to advance to the muzzles of guns with perfect nonchalance! 
To be indeed a God!

18
O, to sail to sea in a ship! 
To leave this steady, unendurable land! 
To leave the tiresome sameness of the streets, the sidewalks and the houses; 
To leave you, O you solid motionless land, and entering a ship, 
To sail, and sail, and sail!

19
O to have my life henceforth a poem of new joys! 
To dance, clap hands, exu...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

The Glove

...it and jested
With life so, De Lorge had been wooing
For months past; he sat there pursuing
His suit, weighing out with nonchalance
Fine speeches like gold from a balance.

Sound the trumpet, no true knight's a tarrier!
De Lorge made one leap at the barrier,
Walked straight to the glove,---while the lion
Neer moved, kept his far-reaching eye on
The palm-tree-edged desert-spring's sapphire,
And the musky oiled skin of the Kaffir,---
Picked it up, and as calmly retreated,
Leape...Read more of this...
by Browning, Robert

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