Famous Unalterable Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Sonnet LXIX

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET LXIX. Erano i capei d' oro all' aura sparsi. HE PAINTS THE BEAUTIES OF LAURA, PROTESTING HIS UNALTERABLE LOVE.  Loose to the breeze her golden tresses flow'dWildly in thousand mazy ringlets blown,And from her eyes unconquer'd glances shone,Those glances now so sparingly bestow'd.And true or false, meseem'd some signs she...Read more of this...

Testament

by Wendell Berry
 1.
Dear relatives and friends, when my last breath
Grows large and free in air, don't call it death --
A word to enrich the undertaker and inspire
His surly art of imitating life; conspire
Against him. Say that my body cannot now
Be improved upon; it has no fault to show
To the sly cosmetician. Say that my flesh
Has a perfect compliance with the grass
Truer...Read more of this...

The Shrubbery Written in a Time of Affliction

by William Cowper
 Oh happy shades--to me unblest!
Friendly to peace, but not to me!
How ill the scene that offers rest,
And heart that cannot rest, agree!
This glassy stream, that spreading pine,
Those alders quiv'ring to the breeze,
Might sooth a soul less hurt than mine,
And please, if any thing could please.

But fix'd unalterable care
Foregoes not what she feels within,
Shows the same sadness ev'rywhere,
And slights the...Read more of this...

Old King Cole

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 In Tilbury Town did Old King Cole 
A wise old age anticipate, 
Desiring, with his pipe and bowl, 
No Khan’s extravagant estate. 
No crown annoyed his honest head,
No fiddlers three were called or needed; 
For two disastrous heirs instead 
Made music more than ever three did. 

Bereft of her with whom his life 
Was harmony without a flaw,
He took...Read more of this...

Coloring Book

by Connie Wanek
 Each picture is heartbreakingly banal,
a kitten and a ball of yarn,
a dog and bone.
The paper is cheap, easily torn.
A coloring book's authority is derived
from its heavy black lines
as unalterable as the ten commandments
within which minor decisions are possible:
the dog black and white,
the kitten gray.
Under the picture we find a few words,
a title, perhaps a narrative,
a psalm or sermon.
But nowhere...Read more of this...

Lucifer in Starlight

by George Meredith
 On a starred night Prince Lucifer uprose.
Tired of his dark dominion swung the fiend
Above the rolling ball in cloud part screened,
Where sinners hugged their spectre of repose.
Poor prey to his hot fit of pride were those.
And now upon his western wing he leaned,
Now his huge bulk o'er Afric's sands careened,
Now the black planet shadowed Arctic snows.
Soaring through wider zones...Read more of this...

The Valley of the Shadow

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 There were faces to remember in the Valley of the Shadow, 
There were faces unregarded, there were faces to forget; 
There were fires of grief and fear that are a few forgotten ashes, 
There were sparks of recognition that are not forgotten yet. 
For at first, with an amazed and overwhelming indignation
At a measureless malfeasance that obscurely willed it...Read more of this...

The Horsemen

by Obi Nwakanma
for Christopher Okigbo 
Emrnanuel Ifeajuna & 
Chukwuma Nzeogwu

I

It was a room above the alcove
in a city renewed by junipers

And by desires... 

Stripped of words, 
the moments recalled; 
where the tower, 
lo, was in sight: 

memories undaunted by sound 
or flames of the amethyst, 

spoke to me; 
spoke to me like the preacher from…

I recall this moment staggering through the wind,...Read more of this...

Cousin Nancy

by T S (Thomas Stearns) Eliot
 MISS NANCY ELLICOTT
Strode across the hills and broke them,
Rode across the hills and broke them—
The barren New England hills—
Riding to hounds
Over the cow-pasture.

Miss Nancy Ellicott smoked
And danced all the modern dances;
And her aunts were not quite sure how they felt about it,
But they knew that it was modern.

Upon the glazen shelves kept watch
Matthew and Waldo, guardians of the faith,
The...Read more of this...

Dolor

by Theodore Roethke
 I have known the inexorable sadness of pencils,
Neat in their boxes, dolor of pad and paper weight,
All the misery of manilla folders and mucilage,
Desolation in immaculate public places,
Lonely reception room, lavatory, switchboard,
The unalterable pathos of basin and pitcher,
Ritual of multigraph, paper-clip, comma,
Endless duplication of lives and objects.
And I have seen dust from the walls of institutions,
Finer than flour, alive,...Read more of this...

El Nudo (The Knot)

by Delmira Agustini
Spanish    Su idilio fue una larga sonrisa a cuatro labios…En el regazo cálido de rubia primaveraAmáronse talmente que entre sus dedos sabiosPalpitó la divina forma de la Quimera.    En los palacios fúlgidos de las tardes en calmaHablábanse un lenguaje sentido como un lloro,Y se besaban hondo hasta morderse el alma!…Las horas deshojáronse como flores de oro,    Y el Destino interpuso sus dos manos...Read more of this...

End of Another Home Holiday

by D. H. Lawrence
I

When shall I see the half moon sink again
Behind the black sycamore at the end of the garden?
When will the scent of the dim, white phlox
Creep up the wall to me, and in at my open window?

Why is it, the long slow stroke of the midnight bell,
    (Will it never finish the twelve?)
Falls again and again on...Read more of this...

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