Famous Unasked Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A Silence

...s
uncrumpling transient
greed to reinvest

 *

names have been
given (revelation
kif nirvana
syncope) for
whatever gift
unasked
gives birth to

torrents
fixities
reincarnations of
the angels
Joseph Smith
enduring
martyrdom

a cavernous
compunction driving
founder-charlatans
who saw in it
the infinite
love of God
and had
(George Fox
was one)
great openings...Read more of this...
by Clampitt, Amy


Endymion

...
She woke Endymion with a kiss, 10 
When, sleeping in the grove, 
He dreamed not of her love. 

Like Dian's kiss, unasked, unsought, 
Love gives itself, but is not bought; 
Nor voice, nor sound betrays 15 
Its deep, impassioned gaze. 

It comes,¡ªthe beautiful, the free, 
The crown of all humanity,¡ª 
In silence and alone 
To seek the elected one. 20 

It lifts the boughs, whose shadows deep 
Are Life's oblivion, the soul's sleep, 
And kisses the closed eyes...Read more of this...
by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth

Geraint And Enid

...household Spirit at the walls 
Beat, till she woke the sleepers, and returned: 
Then tending her rough lord, though all unasked, 
In silence, did him service as a squire; 
Till issuing armed he found the host and cried, 
'Thy reckoning, friend?' and ere he learnt it, 'Take 
Five horses and their armours;' and the host 
Suddenly honest, answered in amaze, 
'My lord, I scarce have spent the worth of one!' 
'Ye will be all the wealthier,' said the Prince, 
And then to Enid, 'For...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord

Giving chapter V

...speaks, and from behind their eyes He smiles upon the earth. 

It is well to give when asked, but it is better to give unasked, through understanding; 

And to the open-handed the search for one who shall receive is joy greater than giving 

And is there aught you would withhold? 

All you have shall some day be given; 

Therefore give now, that the season of giving may be yours and not your inheritors'. 

You often say, "I would give, but only to the deserving." 

The trees...Read more of this...
by Gibran, Kahlil

Poppies In October

...or the woman in the ambulance
Whose red heart blooms through her coat so astoundingly ----

A gift, a love gift
Utterly unasked for
By a sky

Palely and flamily
Igniting its carbon monoxides, by eyes
Dulled to a halt under bowlers.

O my God, what am I
That these late mouths should cry open
In a forest of frost, in a dawn of cornflowers....Read more of this...
by Plath, Sylvia


Run to Death

...de eyes dark, and shadow-fringed, and wild,
With the cowed suspicious glances of a persecuted race.
Then they all, with unasked question, in each other's faces peer,
For a common thought has struck them, one their lips dare scarcely say,--
Till Lord Gaston cries, impatient, 'Why regret the stately deer
When such sport as yonder offers? quick ! unleash the dogs--away!'
Then they breath'd a shout of cheering, grey-haired man and stripling boy,
And the gipsy, roused to terror, s...Read more of this...
by Levy, Amy

Strong Mercy

...my life through and through. 

Day by day thou art making me worthy of the simple, 
great gifts that thou gavest to me unasked---this sky and the light, this body and the 
life and the mind---saving me from perils of overmuch desire. 

There are times when I languidly linger 
and times when I awaken and hurry in search of my goal; 
but cruelly thou hidest thyself from before me. 

Day by day thou art making me worthy of thy full acceptance by 
refusing me ever and anon, savi...Read more of this...
by Tagore, Rabindranath

Sword Blades and Poppy Seed

...
Dealer in Words." And that was all.
I stared at the letters, whimsical
Indeed, or was it merely a jest.
He answered my unasked request:
"All books are either dreams or swords,
You can cut, or you can drug, with words.
My firm is a very ancient house,
The entries on my books would rouse
Your wonder, perhaps incredulity.
I inherited from an ancestry
Stretching remotely back and far,
This business, and my clients are
As were those of my grandfather's days,
Writers of books, and...Read more of this...
by Lowell, Amy

The Disquieting Muses

...Mother, mother, what ill-bred aunt
Or what disfigured and unsightly
Cousin did you so unwisely keep
Unasked to my christening, that she
Sent these ladies in her stead
With heads like darning-eggs to nod
And nod and nod at foot and head
And at the left side of my crib?

Mother, who made to order stories
Of Mixie Blackshort the heroic bear,
Mother, whose witches always, always
Got baked into gingerbread, I wonder
Whether you saw them, whether you said
Words ...Read more of this...
by Plath, Sylvia

The Fortune-Favored

...one the brightest on the blind;--
And their choice spirit found its calm recess
In the pure childhood of a simple mind.
Unasked they come delighted to delude
The expectation of our baffled pride;
No law can call their free steps to our side.
Him whom he loves, the sire of men and gods
(Selected from the marvelling multitude)
Bears on his eagle to his bright abodes;
And showers, with partial hand and lavish, down,
The minstrel's laurel or the monarch's crown!
Before the fortun...Read more of this...
by Schiller, Friedrich von

The Lady of the Lake

...ome to her guest she made,
     And every courteous rite was paid
     That hospitality could claim,
     Though all unasked his birth and name.
     Such then the reverence to a guest,
     That fellest foe might join the feast,
     And from his deadliest foeman's door
     Unquestioned turn the banquet o'er
     At length his rank the stranger names,
     'The Knight of Snowdoun, James Fitz-James;
     Lord of a barren heritage,
     Which his brave sires, from ...Read more of this...
by Scott, Sir Walter

The Singing

...he was going a house where a girl in braids 
 waited for him on
the porch that was all

No one saw no one heard all the unasked and 
 unanswered questions
were left where they were
It occurred to me to sing back "I'm not a nice 
 person either" but I
couldn't come up with a tune

Besides I wouldn't have meant it nor he have believed 
 it both of us
knew just where we were
In the duet we composed the equation we made 
 the conventions to
which we were condemned

Sometimes it f...Read more of this...
by Williams, C K

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