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Famous Overlooked Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Schwartz, Delmore
...Held in by the mansard roof mansion
He glimpsed the shadowy light on last year's brittle leaves fallen,
Looked over and overlooked, glimpsed by the fall of death,
Winter's mourning and the May's renewal....Read more of this...



by Dickinson, Emily
...o push, and pierce, besides --
That if the Flesh resist the Heft --
The puncture -- coolly tries --

That not a pore be overlooked
Of all this Compound Frame --
As manifold for Anguish --
As Species -- be -- for name --...Read more of this...

by Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...ll;--one silent nook
Was there. Even on the edge of that vast mountain,
Upheld by knotty roots and fallen rocks,
It overlooked in its serenity
The dark earth and the bending vault of stars.
It was a tranquil spot that seemed to smile
Even in the lap of horror. Ivy clasped
The fissured stones with its entwining arms,
And did embower with leaves forever green 
And berries dark the smooth and even space
Of its inviolated floor; and here
The children of the autumnal w...Read more of this...

by Dickinson, Emily
...can --

Home effaced -- Her faces dwindled --
Nature -- altered small --
Sun -- if shone -- or Storm -- if shattered --
Overlooked I all --

Dropped -- my fate -- a timid Pebble --
In thy bolder Sea --
Prove -- me -- Sweet -- if I regret it --
Prove Myself -- of Thee --...Read more of this...

by Dickinson, Emily
...Autumn -- overlooked my Knitting --
Dyes -- said He -- have I --
Could disparage a Flamingo --
Show Me them -- said I --

Cochineal -- I chose -- for deeming
It resemble Thee --
And the little Border -- Dusker --
For resembling Me --...Read more of this...



by Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...on it, I might well have made 
For you the picture of the last man left 
Where God, in his extinction of the rest, 
Had overlooked him and forgotten him. 
Yet I was not alone. Interminably
The minutes crawled along and over me, 
Slow, cold, intangible, and invisible, 
As if they had come up out of that water. 
How long I sat there I shall never know, 
For time was hidden out there in the black lake,
Which now I could see only as a glimpse 
Of black light by the sh...Read more of this...

by Raine, Kathleen
...Wanting to know all
I overlooked each particle
Containing the whole
Unknowable.

Intent on one great love, perfect,
Requited and for ever,
I missed love's everywhere
Small presence, thousand-guised.

And lifelong have been reading
Book after book, searching
For wisdom, but bringing
Only my own understanding.

Forgive me, forgiver,
Whether you be infinite omniscient
Or...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...rest at sea, nor I on shore.

If my inheritance of storms hath been
In other elements, and on the rocks
Of perils, overlooked or unforeseen,
I have sustained my share of worldly shocks,
The fault was mine; nor do I seek to screen
My errors with defensive paradox;
I have been cunning in mine overthrow,
The careful pilot of my proper woe.

Mine were my faults, and mine be their reward,
My whole life was a contest, since the day
That gave me being, gave me that which ma...Read more of this...

by Tagore, Rabindranath
...or in vain 
and things that I got 
---let them pass. 
Let me but truly possess 
the things that I ever spurned 
and overlooked....Read more of this...

by Frost, Robert
...in front, three stories
On the side it presented to the road)
To see if there was not some special tree
She might have overlooked. They could find none,
Not so much as a single tree for shade,
Let alone grove of trees for sugar orchard.
She told him of the bookmark maple leaf
In the big Bible, and all she remembered
of the place marked with it—"Wave offering,
Something about wave offering, it said."

 "You've never asked your father outright, have you?"

 "I have...Read more of this...

by Smith, Stevie
...urch has grown.
I only write this poem because I thought it rather looked
As if the part the lions played was being overlooked.
By lions' jaws great benefits and blessings were begotten
And so our debt to Lionhood must never be forgotten....Read more of this...

by Simic, Charles
...of me
Hidden up there among the leaves,
Or are your brains momentarily overtaxed?

You savvy a few things I don't:
The overlooked sunflower seed worth a holler;
The traffic of cats in the yard;
Strangers leaving the widow's house,
Tieless and wearing crooked grins.

Or have you got wind of the world's news?
Some new horror I haven't heard about yet?
Which one of you was so bold as to warn me,
Our sweet setup is in danger?

Kids are playing soldiers down the road,
Pointin...Read more of this...

by Morris, William
...nt cypress wood,
A long-deserted ruined castle stood.

The wood, once ordered in fair grove and glade,
With gardens overlooked by terraces,
And marble-pavèd pools for pleasure made,
Was tangled now and choked with fallen trees;
And he who went there, with but little ease
Must stumble by the stream's side, once made meet
For tender women's dainty wandering feet.

The raven's croak, the low wind choked and drear,
The baffled stream, the grey wolf's doleful cry,
Were all...Read more of this...

by Lanier, Sidney
...at I may see."
Forthwith a dozen horny hands reached out
And lifted Gris Grillon upon the ledge,
Whereon he lay and overlooked the crowd,
And from the gray-grown hedges of his brows
Shot forth a glance against the friar's eye
That struck him like an arrow.
Then the friar,
With voice as low as if a maiden hummed
Love-songs of Provence in a mild day-dream:
"And when he broke the second seal, I heard
The second beast say, Come and see.
And then
Went out another horse...Read more of this...

by McGonagall, William Topaz
...

And quickly in response to their cry of distress,
Four members of the coastguard, in coastguard dreys,
Whose station overlooked the scene, put off in a small boat,
And with a desperate struggle they managed to keep her afloat. 

Then the coastguards and boat drifted rapidly away,
Until they found themselves in the little bay,
Whilst the big waves washed o'er them, again and again,
And they began to think their struggling was all in vain. 

But they struggled on man...Read more of this...

by Dickinson, Emily
...lived
It was a Common Night
Except the Dying -- this to Us
Made Nature different

We noticed smallest things --
Things overlooked before
By this great light upon our Minds
Italicized -- as 'twere.

As We went out and in
Between Her final Room
And Rooms where Those to be alive
Tomorrow were, a Blame

That Others could exist
While She must finish quite
A Jealousy for Her arose
So nearly infinite --

We waited while She passed --
It was a narrow time --
Too jostled were Our...Read more of this...

by Sexton, Anne
...em
or explain the degrading details
I have remembered much
about Judas -
about Judas, the old and the famous -
that you overlooked.

The story of his life
is the story of mine.
I have one glass eye.
My nerves push against its painted surface
but the other one
waiting for judgement
continues to see . . .

Of course
the New Testament is very small.
Its mouth opens four times -
as out-of-date as a prehistoric monster,
yet somehow man-made
held togethe...Read more of this...

by Masters, Edgar Lee
...ess;
Notes passed, and many a fair one's door at eve
Knew a bouquet, and strolling lovers thronged
About the hills that overlooked the river.
Then, since the mercy seats more empty showed,
One of God's chosen lifted up his voice:
"The woman of Babylon is among us; rise,
Ye sons of light, and drive the wanton forth!"
So John Cabanis left the church and left
The hosts of law and order with his eyes
By anger cleared, and him the liberal cause
Acclaimed as nominee to the mayo...Read more of this...

by Dickinson, Emily
...ame one drop of Giant Rain
And then as if the Hands

That held the Dams had parted hold
The Waters Wrecked the Sky,
But overlooked my Father's House --
Just quartering a Tree --...Read more of this...

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Overlooked poems.


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