Famous Obscurely Poems by Famous Poets

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

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173. Elegy on Stella

...m
 The Poet and the Song.


The tear of pity which he sheds,
 He asks not to receive;
Let but his poor remains be laid
 Obscurely in the grave.


His grief-worn heart, with truest joy,
 Shall meet he welcome shock:
His airy harp shall lie unstrung,
 And silent on the rock.


O, my dear maid, my Stella, when
 Shall this sick period close,
And lead the solitary bard
 To his belov’d repose?...Read more of this...
by Burns, Robert


An Ode in Time of Hesitation

...men, and like men of noble breed; 
And when the battle fell away at night 
By hasty and contemptuous hands were thrust 
Obscurely in a common grave with him 
The fair-haired keeper of their love and trust. 
Now limb doth mingle with dissolvèd limb 
In nature's busy old democracy 
To flush the mountain laurel when she blows 
Sweet by the southern sea, 
And heart with crumbled heart climbs in the rose: -- 
The untaught hearts with the high heart that knew 
This mountain fortres...Read more of this...
by Moody, William Vaughn

Champagne 1914-15

...onored that his flag might float 
Over the towers of liberty, he made 
His breast the bulwark and his blood the moat. 

Obscurely sacrificed, his nameless tomb, 
Bare of the sculptor's art, the poet's lines, 
Summer shall flush with poppy-fields in bloom, 
And Autumn yellow with maturing vines. 

There the grape-pickers at their harvesting 
Shall lightly tread and load their wicker trays, 
Blessing his memory as they toil and sing 
In the slant sunshine of October days. . . ....Read more of this...
by Seeger, Alan

Diving into the Wreck

...

whose drowned face sleeps with open eyes
whose breasts still bear the stress
whose silver, copper, vermeil cargo lies
obscurely inside barrels
half-wedged and left to rot
we are the half-destroyed instruments
that once held to a course
the water-eaten log
the fouled compass

We are, I am, you are
by cowardice or courage
the one who find our way
back to this scene
carrying a knife, a camera
a book of myths
in which
our names do not appear....Read more of this...
by Rich, Adrienne

Monody to the Memory of Chatterton

...to solace,­but the verse he lov'd: 
No soothing numbers harmoniz'd his ear; 
No feeling bosom gave his griefs a tear; 
Obscurely born­no gen'rous friend he found 
To lead his trembling steps o'er classic ground. 
No patron fill'd his heart with flatt'ring hope, 
No tutor'd lesson gave his genius scope; 
Yet, while poetic ardour nerv'd each thought, 
And REASON sanction'd what AMBITION taught; 
He soar'd beyond the narrow spells that bind 
The slow perceptions of the vulgar m...Read more of this...
by Robinson, Mary Darby


Ode in Memory of the American Volunteers Fallen for France

...s made gray -- 
Their graves in every town are garlanded, 
That pious tribute should be given too 
To our intrepid few 
Obscurely fallen here beyond the seas. 
Those to preserve their country's greatness died; 
But by the death of these 
Something that we can look upon with pride 
Has been achieved, nor wholly unreplied 
Can sneerers triumph in the charge they make 
That from a war where Freedom was at stake 
America withheld and, daunted, stood aside. 

II 

Be they remember...Read more of this...
by Seeger, Alan

On The Death Of Mr. Robert Levet A Practiser In Physic

...grave descend,
Officious, innocent, sincere,
Of every friendless name the friend.

Yet still he fills affection's eye,
Obscurely wise and coarsely kind;
Nor, letter'd Arrogance, deny
Thy praise to merit unrefined.

When fainting nature call'd for aid,
And hov'ring death prepared the blow,
His vig'rous remedy display'd
The power of art without the show.

In Misery's darkest cavern known,
His useful care was ever nigh,
Where hopeless Anguish pour'd his groan,
And lonely Want r...Read more of this...
by Johnson, Samuel

Paradise Lost: Book 12

...piration to the just, 
And vengeance to the wicked, at return 
Of him so lately promised to thy aid, 
The Woman's Seed; obscurely then foretold, 
Now ampler known thy Saviour and thy Lord; 
Last, in the clouds, from Heaven to be revealed 
In glory of the Father, to dissolve 
Satan with his perverted world; then raise 
From the conflagrant mass, purged and refined, 
New Heavens, new Earth, ages of endless date, 
Founded in righteousness, and peace, and love; 
To bring forth fr...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Praise In Summer

...Obscurely yet most surely called to praise,
As sometimes summer calls us all, I said
The hills are heavens full of branching ways
Where star-nosed moles fly overhead the dead;
I said the trees are mines in air, I said
See how the sparrow burrows in the sky!
And then I wondered why this mad instead
Perverts our praise to uncreation, why
Such savour's in this ...Read more of this...
by Wilbur, Richard

Sonnets 08: And You As Well Must Die Beloved Du

...Nor shall my love avail you in your hour.
In spite of all my love, you will arise
Upon that day and wander down the air
Obscurely as the unattended flower,
It mattering not how beautiful you were,
Or how beloved above all else that dies....Read more of this...
by St. Vincent Millay, Edna

The Lady of the Lake

...altered look,
     And said: 'This ring our duties own;
     And pardon, if to worth unknown,
     In semblance mean obscurely veiled,
     Lady, in aught my folly failed.
     Soon as the day flings wide his gates,
     The King shall know what suitor waits.
     Please you meanwhile in fitting bower
     Repose you till his waking hour.
     Female attendance shall obey
     Your hest, for service or array.
     Permit I marshal you the way.'
     But, ere she f...Read more of this...
by Scott, Sir Walter

The Poet And His Book

...and ashes,
Weep not me, my friend!

Me, by no means dead
In that hour, but surely
When this book, unread,
Rots to earth obscurely,
And no more to any breast,
Close against the clamorous swelling
Of the thing there is no telling,
Are these pages pressed!

When this book is mould,
And a book of many
Waiting to be sold
For a casual penny,
In a little open case,
In a street unclean and cluttered,
Where a heavy mud is spattered
From the passing drays,

Stranger, pause and look;
Fr...Read more of this...
by St. Vincent Millay, Edna

The Sister

...n your souls, my brothers, surely! 
 Though I fear—from the hands that are chafing the hilt, 
 And the hints you give obscurely. 
 
 THIRD BROTHER. 
 
 Gulnara, this evening when sank the red sun, 
 Didst thou mark how like blood in descending it shone? 
 
 THE SISTER. 
 
 Mercy! Allah! have pity! oh, spare! 
 See! I cling to your knees repenting! 
 Kind brothers, forgive me! for mercy, forbear! 
 Be appeased at the cry of a sister's despair, 
 For our mother's...Read more of this...
by Hugo, Victor

The Valley of the Shadow

...hat are not forgotten yet. 
For at first, with an amazed and overwhelming indignation
At a measureless malfeasance that obscurely willed it thus, 
They were lost and unacquainted—till they found themselves in others, 
Who had groped as they were groping where dim ways were perilous. 

There were lives that were as dark as are the fears and intuitions 
Of a child who knows himself and is alone with what he knows;
There were pensioners of dreams and there were debtors of illusi...Read more of this...
by Robinson, Edwin Arlington

Wherein Obscurely

...On the road with billowing poplars,
In a country flat and desolate
To the far-off gray horizon, wherein obscurely,
A man and a woman went on foot,

Each carrying a small suitcase.
They were tired and had taken off
Their shoes and were walking on
Their toes, staring straight ahead.

Every time a car passed fast,
As they're wont to on such a stretch of
Road, empty as the crow flies,
How quickly they were gone--

The cars, I mean, and then the drizzle
That brough...Read more of this...
by Simic, Charles

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