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Famous Unbearable Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Chesterton, G K
...world
Return upon him as a tale is told.

Or found his mirror there; the only glass
That would not break with that unbearable light
Till in a corner of the high dark house
God looked on God, as ghosts meet in the night.

Star of his morning; that unfallen star
In that strange starry overturn of space
When earth and sky changed places for an hour
And heaven looked upwards in a human face.

Or young on your strong knees and lifted up
Wisdom cried out, whose voice i...Read more of this...



by Milosz, Czeslaw
...ut at will.

What I'm saying here is not, I agree, poetry,
as poems should be written rarely and reluctantly,
under unbearable duress and only with the hope
that good spirits, not evil ones, choose us for their instrument....Read more of this...

by Fu, Du
...tion"> I've heard them say that Chang'an seems like in a game of chess, A hundred years of world events have caused unbearable pain. The palaces of the noblemen all have their new masters, Civil and military dress and caps are not like those before. Straight north over mountain passes, gongs and drums ring out, Conquering the west, carts and horses, feather-hurried dispatches. The fish and dragons are still and silent, the autumn river cold, A peac...Read more of this...

by Mandelstam, Osip
...us glorify the deadly weight
the people’s leader lifts with tears.
Let us glorify the dark burden of fate,
power’s unbearable yoke of fears.
How your ship is sinking, straight,
he who has a heart, Time, hears.

We have bound swallows
into battle legions - and we,
we cannot see the sun: nature’s boughs
are living, twittering, moving, totally:
through the nets –the thick twilight - now
we cannot see the sun, and Earth floats free.

Let’s try: a huge, clumsy, tu...Read more of this...

by Hunt, James Henry Leigh
...Come thou, thou last one, whom I recognize,
unbearable pain throughout this body's fabric:
as I in my spirit burned, see, I now burn in thee:
the wood that long resisted the advancing flames
which thou kept flaring, I now am nourishinig
and burn in thee.

My gentle and mild being through thy ruthless fury
has turned into a raging hell that is not from here.
Quite pure, quite free of future pla...Read more of this...



by Kramberger, Taja
...me a social scientist
and an editor and an organiser
and a translator and an activist
and a university teacher.
Unbearable - all these things -
all trespasses of the old parcel borders
that were drawn by the dirty
fingers of fraternities.

I air all the rooms,
I ignore all the ratings,
I open all the valvelets.

And they have put me out in the cold –
like the dead.
But every dead one has a name.

© Taja Kramberger, Z roba klifa / From the ...Read more of this...

by Tebb, Barry
...his second letter

Could never happen: a few days later

A Christmas card in Gaelic - Nollaig Shona -

Then silence, an unbearable chasm

Of wondering if I’d inadvertently offended.



A year later a second card explained the silence:

I joined the queue of mourners:

It was August when I saw the Guardian obituary

Behind glass in the Poetry Library.



How astonishing the colour photo,

The mane of white hair,

The proud mien, the wry smile,

Perfect for a bust by Ep...Read more of this...

by Varos, Dimitris
...r 
I m what holds your life on. 

I play mind games with your brain. 
But I swear this is not a fun.
I feel unbearable loneliness. 
Because I do not have a body 
And you, that you have, refuse me yours....Read more of this...

by Chesterton, G K
...art
Because of the gods that were.

Even they that walked on the high cliffs,
High as the clouds were then,
Gods of unbearable beauty,
That broke the hearts of men.

And whether in seat or saddle,
Whether with frown or smile,
Whether at feast or fight was he,
He heard the noise of a nameless sea
On an undiscovered isle.

Lifting the great green ivy
And the great spear lowering,
One said, "I am Alfred of Wessex,
And I am a conquered king."

And the man of the c...Read more of this...

by Blake, William
...aces & pour'd
Iron sodor and sodor of brass 

5. Restless turnd the immortal inchain'd
Heaving dolorous! anguish'd! unbearable
Till a roof shaggy wild inclos'd
In an orb, his fountain of thought.

6. In a horrible dreamful slumber; 
Like the linked infernal chain;
A vast Spine writh'd in torment
Upon the winds; shooting pain'd
Ribs, like a bending cavern
And bones of solidness, froze 
Over all his nerves of joy.
And a first Age passed over,
And a state of dism...Read more of this...

by Nin, Anais
...th. They do not dwell enough on the resurrection, on joy and life in the present." Today I feel my past like an unbearable weight, I feel that it interferes with my present life, that it must be the cause for this withdrawal, this closing of doors. . . I am embalmed because a nun leaned over me, enveloped me in her veils, kissed me. The chill curse of Christianity. I do not confess any more, I have no remorse, yet am I doing penance for my enjoymen...Read more of this...

by Levis, Larry
...teps behind them both.
But you'd have to know the story--how bedridden
Keats wanted the inscription to be
Simple, & unbearable: "Here lies one
Whose name is writ in water." On a warm day,
I stood here with my two oldest friends.
I thought, then, that the three of us would be
Indissoluble at the end, & also that
We would all die, of course. And not die.
And maybe we should have joined hands at that
Moment. We didn't. All we did was follow
A lame man...Read more of this...

by Akhmatova, Anna
...ng, without my volition,
I will give out for laughter and parable,
For this that the silence of love
Is to me simply unbearable.



x x x

They're on the way, the words of love and freedom,
They're flying faster than the moment flies
And I am in stage fright before singing -
My lips have grown colder than ice.

But soon that place, where, leaning to the windows
The tender birches make dry rustling sound,
The voices will be ringing of the shadows
And...Read more of this...

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