Famous Unbroken Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A Letter From Li Po

...still,
the singer holds his phrase, the rising moon
remains unrisen. Even the fountain's falling blade
hangs in the air unbroken, and says: Wait!

VIII

Text into text, text out of text. Pretext
for scholars or for scholiasts. The living word
springs from the dying, as leaves in spring
spring from dead leaves, our birth from death.
And all is text, is holy text. Sheepfold Hill
becomes its name for us, anti yet is still
unnamed, unnamable, a book of trees
before it was a book ...Read more of this...
by Aiken, Conrad


Ash Wednesday

...h to wish these things
From the wide window towards the granite shore
The white sails still fly seaward, seaward flying
Unbroken wings

And the lost heart stiffens and rejoices
In the lost lilac and the lost sea voices
And the weak spirit quickens to rebel
For the bent golden-rod and the lost sea smell
Quickens to recover
The cry of quail and the whirling plover
And the blind eye creates
The empty forms between the ivory gates
And smell renews the salt savour of the sandy ear...Read more of this...
by Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)

Atalantas Race

...eth this,
A strong man's arms about her body twined.
Nor may she shudder now to feel his kiss,
So wrapped she is in new unbroken bliss:
Made happy that the foe the prize hath won,
She weeps glad tears for all her glory done.

Shatter the trumpet, hew adown the posts!
Upon the brazen altar break the sword,
And scatter incense to appease the ghosts
Of those who died here by their own award.
Bring forth the image of the mighty Lord,
And her who unseen o'er the runners hung,
And ...Read more of this...
by Morris, William

Bishop Blougrams Apology

...itself, 
Up goes the line there, plain from base to brow, 
Not vague, mistakeable! what's a break or two 
Seen from the unbroken desert either side? 
And then (to bring in fresh philosophy) 
What if the breaks themselves should prove at last 
The most consummate of contrivances 
To train a man's eye, teach him what is faith? 
And so we stumble at truth's very test! 
All we have gained then by our unbelief 
Is a life of doubt diversified by faith, 
For one of faith diversified...Read more of this...
by Browning, Robert

Christmas Bells

...n earth, good-will to men!


And thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along
The unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!


Till, ringing, singing on its way,
The world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime
A chant sublime
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!


Then from each black accursed mouth
The cannon thundered in the South,
And with the sound
The carols drowned
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!


It was as if a...Read more of this...
by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth


Coffee

...
bothered to wrap the robe completely around herself. She was just holding the robe in
front of herself.
I could see an unbroken line of body running from her head to her feet. It looked kind
of strange. Perhaps because it was so late at night.
"What do you want?" she said.
"I want a cup of coffee," I said. What a funny thing to say, to say again for
a cup of coffee was not what I really wanted.
She looked at me and wheeled slightly on the profile. She was not pleased to see ...Read more of this...
by Brautigan, Richard

Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie

...ng mosses in mid-air
Waved like banners that hang on the walls of ancient cathedrals.
Deathlike the silence seemed, and unbroken, save by the herons
Home to their roasts in the cedar-trees returning at sunset,
Or by the owl, as he greeted the moon with demoniac laughter.
Lovely the moonlight was as it glanced and gleamed on the water,
Gleamed on the columns of cypress and cedar sustaining the arches,
Down through whose broken vaults it fell as through chinks in a ruin.
Dreaml...Read more of this...
by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth

Gertrude of Wyoming

...worlds; and there his household fire
The light of social love did long inspire,
And many a halcyon day he lived to see
Unbroken but by one misfortune dire,
When fate had reft his mutual heart--but she
Was gone--and Gertrude climb'd a widow'd father's knee.

A loved bequest,--and I may half impart--
To them that feel the strong paternal tie,
How like a new existence to his heart
That living flower uprose beneath his eye
Dear as she was from cherub infancy,
From hours when she...Read more of this...
by Campbell, Thomas

Integrity

...the quality of being complete; unbroken condition; entirety
~ Webster
A wild patience has taken me this far

as if I had to bring to shore
a boat with a spasmodic outboard motor
old sweaters, nets, spray-mottled books
tossed in the prow
some kind of sun burning my shoulder-blades.
Splashing the oarlocks. Burning through.
Your fore-arms can get scalded, licked with pain
in a sun blotted li...Read more of this...
by Rich, Adrienne

Paradise Lost: Book 02

...of wrath, replied:-- 
"Art thou that traitor Angel? art thou he, 
Who first broke peace in Heaven and faith, till then 
Unbroken, and in proud rebellious arms 
Drew after him the third part of Heaven's sons, 
Conjured against the Highest--for which both thou 
And they, outcast from God, are here condemned 
To waste eternal days in woe and pain? 
And reckon'st thou thyself with Spirits of Heaven 
Hell-doomed, and breath'st defiance here and scorn, 
Where I reign king, and, to ...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Prothalamion

...guish, weakness, loss and failure,
No form is cruel as self-deception, none
Shows day-by-day a bad dream long lived
And unbroken like the lies
We tell each other because we are rich or poor.
Though from the general guilt not free
We can keep honor by being poor.

The waste, the evil, the abomination
Is interrupted. the perfect stars persist
Small in the guilty night,
 and Mozart shows
The irreducible incorruptible good
Risen past birth and death, though he is dead.
Hope, like...Read more of this...
by Schwartz, Delmore

Resignation

...ir; 30 
Year after year her tender steps pursuing  
Behold her grown more fair. 

Thus do we walk with her and keep unbroken 
The bond which nature gives  
Thinking that our remembrance though unspoken 35 
May reach her where she lives. 

Not as a child shall we again behold her; 
For when with raptures wild 
In our embraces we again enfold her  
She will not be a child; 40 

But a fair maiden in her Father's mansion  
Clothed with celestial grace; 
And beauti...Read more of this...
by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth

Spirits Of The Dead

...ike dew-drop from the grass.

The breeze, the breath of God, is still,
And the mist upon the hill
Shadowy, shadowy, yet unbroken,
Is a symbol and a token.
How it hangs upon the trees,
A mystery of mysteries!...Read more of this...
by Poe, Edgar Allan

The Ballad of the White Horse

...ng grief.

"Well have you sung, O stranger,
Of death on the dyke in Wales,
Your chief was a bracelet-giver;
But the red unbroken river
Of a race runs not for ever,
But suddenly it fails.

"Doubtless your sires were sword-swingers
When they waded fresh from foam,
Before they were turned to women
By the god of the nails from Rome;

"But since you bent to the shaven men,
Who neither lust nor smite,
Thunder of Thor, we hunt you
A hare on the mountain height."

King Guthrum smiled...Read more of this...
by Chesterton, G K

The Flight Of The Duchess

...them midway in the world:
Word took word as hand takes hand,
I could hear at last, and understand,
And when I held the unbroken thread,
The Gipsy said:---

``And so at last we find my tribe.
``And so I set thee in the midst,
``And to one and all of them describe
``What thou saidst and what thou didst,
``Our long and terrible journey through,
``And all thou art ready to say and do
``In the trials that remain:
``I trace them the vein and the other vein
``That meet on thy brow ...Read more of this...
by Browning, Robert

The Holy Grail

...n one full field 
Of gracious pastime, that once more the King, 
Before ye leave him for this Quest, may count 
The yet-unbroken strength of all his knights, 
Rejoicing in that Order which he made." 

`So when the sun broke next from under ground, 
All the great table of our Arthur closed 
And clashed in such a tourney and so full, 
So many lances broken--never yet 
Had Camelot seen the like, since Arthur came; 
And I myself and Galahad, for a strength 
Was in us from this vi...Read more of this...
by Tennyson, Alfred Lord

The Lady of the Lake

...chman on the prow;
     So rapidly the barge-mall row,
     The bubbles, where they launched the boat,
     Were all unbroken and afloat,
     Dancing in foam and ripple still,
     When it had neared the mainland hill;
     And from the silver beach's side
     Still was the prow three fathom wide,
     When lightly bounded to the land
     The messenger of blood and brand.
     XIII.

     Speed, Malise, speed! the dun deer's hide
     On fleeter foot was never...Read more of this...
by Scott, Sir Walter

The Problem

...ng choirs  
And through the priest the mind inspires. 

The word unto the prophet spoken 55 
Was writ on tables yet unbroken; 
The word by seers or sibyls told  
In groves of oak or fanes of gold  
Still floats upon the morning wind  
Still whispers to the willing mind. 60 
One accent of the Holy Ghost 
The heedless world hath never lost. 
I know what say the fathers wise ¡ª 
The Book itself before me lies ¡ª 
Old Chrysostom best Augustine 65 
And he who blent b...Read more of this...
by Emerson, Ralph Waldo

The Raven

...ood there wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before;
    But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,
    And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, “Lenore?”
This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, “Lenore!”—
            Merely this and nothing more.

    Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,
Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before.
    “Sure...Read more of this...
by Poe, Edgar Allan

The Widening Spell Of Leaves

...calm yellow leaves
That clustered along a log, or floated there
In broken ringlets, held by a gray froth
On the opaque, unbroken surface of the pond,
Which reflected nothing, no one.
 And then I remembered.
When I was a child, our neighbors would disappear.
And there wasn't a pond of crocodiles at all.
And they hadn't moved. They couldn't move. They
Lived in the small, fenced-off backwater
Of a canal. I'd never seen them alive. They
Were in still photographs taken on the Ivor...Read more of this...
by Levis, Larry

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