Famous Precarious Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Business Girls

...g
Shake the Crescent and the Square.

Early nip of changeful autumn,
Dahlias glimpsed through garden doors,
At the back precarious bathrooms
Jutting out from upper floors;

And behind their frail partitions
Business women lie and soak,
Seeing through the draughty skylight
Flying clouds and railway smoke.

Rest you there, poor unbelov'd ones,
Lap your loneliness in heat.
All too soon the tiny breakfast,
Trolley-bus and windy street!...Read more of this...
by Betjeman, John


Hymn 167

...;
My lips in songs of honor bring
Their tribute to th' eternal King.

[Earth, and the stars, and worlds unknown,
Depend precarious on his throne;
All nature hangs upon his word,
And grace and glory own their Lord.]

[His sovereign power what mortal knows?
If be command, who dares oppose?
With strength he girds himself around,
And treads the rebels to the ground.]

[Who shall pretend to teach him skill,
Or guide the counsels of his will?
His wisdom, like a sea divine,
Flows de...Read more of this...
by Watts, Isaac

I am afraid to own a Body --

...I am afraid to own a Body --
I am afraid to own a Soul --
Profound -- precarious Property --
Possession, not optional --

Double Estate -- entailed at pleasure
Upon an unsuspecting Heir --
Duke in a moment of Deathlessness
And God, for a Frontier....Read more of this...
by Dickinson, Emily

I stepped from Plank to Plank

...Stars about my Head I felt
About my Feet the Sea.

I knew not but the next
Would be my final inch --
This gave me that precarious Gait
Some call Experience....Read more of this...
by Dickinson, Emily

Tenuous And Precarious

...Tenuous and Precarious
Were my guardians,
Precarious and Tenuous,
Two Romans.

My father was Hazardous,
Hazardous
Dear old man,
Three Romans.

There was my brother Spurious,
Spurious Posthumous,
Spurious was Spurious,
Was four Romans.

My husband was Perfidious,
He was Perfidious
Five Romans.
Surreptitious, our son,
Was Surreptitious,
He was six Romans.

Our cat Tedious...Read more of this...
by Smith, Stevie


The house where I was born (10)

....
They were passing through us, with the majesty of simple things,
The mighty sails of what is were kind enough to take
Precarious human life on board the ship
That the mountain spread out around us.
O memory,
They covered with the flapping of their silence
The sound, of water on the stones, of our voices,
And up ahead, there might well be death,
But with that milky color you find at the end of beaches
In the evening, when far off
The children still touch bottom, and laugh in...Read more of this...
by Bonnefoy, Yves

The Man Against the Sky

...of our poor self dominion reft, 
If inference and reason shun 
Hell, Heaven, and Oblivion,
May thwarted will (perforce precarious, 
But for our conservation better thus) 
Have no misgiving left 
Of doing yet what here we leave undone? 
Or if unto the last of these we cleave,
Believing or protesting we believe 
In such an idle and ephemeral 
Florescence of the diabolical,— 
If, robbed of two fond old enormities, 
Our being had no onward auguries,
What then were this great lov...Read more of this...
by Robinson, Edwin Arlington

The reticent volcano keeps

...The reticent volcano keeps
His never slumbering plan --
Confided are his projects pink
To no precarious man.

If nature will not tell the tale
Jehovah told to her
Can human nature not survive
Without a listener?

Admonished by her buckled lips
Let every babbler be
The only secret people keep
Is Immortality....Read more of this...
by Dickinson, Emily

To the Muse of Poetry

...al! 

I SWEAR;­OH, YE, whose souls like mine 
Beam with poetic rays divine, 
Attend my voice;­whate'er my FATE 
In this precarious wild'ring state, 
Whether the FIENDS with rancorous ire 
Strike at my heart's unsullied fire: 
While busy ENVY'S recreant guile 
Calls from my cheek THE PITYING SMILE; 
Or jealous SLANDER mean and vain, 
Essays my mind's BEST BOAST to stain; 
Should all combine to check my lays, 
And tear me from thy fost'ring gaze, 
Ne'er will I quit thy burning ...Read more of this...
by Robinson, Mary Darby

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