Famous Uncanny Poems by Famous Poets

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

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from crossing the line

by Rg Gregory
 (1) a great man

there was a great man
so great he couldn't be criticised in the light
who died
and for a whole week people turned up their collars over their ears
and wept with great gossiping

houses wore their roofs at a mournful angle
and television announcers carried their eyes around in long drooping bags
there was a hush upon the voice of the land
as...Read more of this...

To the United States Senate

by Vachel Lindsay
 And must the Senator from Illinois 
Be this squat thing, with blinking, half-closed eyes? 
This brazen gutter idol, reared to power 
Upon a leering pyramid of lies? 

And must the Senator from Illinois 
Be the world's proverb of successful shame, 
Dazzling all State house flies that steal and steal, 
Who, when the sad State spares them, count it fame?...Read more of this...

Clear with Light Variable Winds

by Amy Lowell
 The fountain bent and straightened itself
In the night wind,
Blowing like a flower.
It gleamed and glittered,
A tall white lily,
Under the eye of the golden moon.
From a stone seat,
Beneath a blossoming lime,
The man watched it.
And the spray pattered
On the dim grass at his feet.
The fountain tossed its water,
Up and up, like silver marbles.
Is that an arm he sees?
And for one moment
Does...Read more of this...

The Bride

by D. H. Lawrence
 My love looks like a girl to-night, 
But she is old. 
The plaits that lie along her pillow 
Are not gold, 
But threaded with filigree silver, 
And uncanny cold. 

She looks like a young maiden, since her brow 
Is smooth and fair, 
Her cheeks are very smooth, her eyes are closed. 
She sleeps a rare 
Still winsome sleep, so...Read more of this...

Melancholia

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
Silently without my window,
Tapping gently at the pane,
Falls the rain.
Through the trees sighs the breeze
Like a soul in pain.
Here alone I sit and weep;
Thought hath banished sleep.
Wearily I sit and listen
To the water's ceaseless drip.
To my lip
Fate turns up the bitter cup,
Forcing me to sip;
'T is a bitter, bitter drink,
Thus I sit and think,—
Thinking things unknown and awful,
Thoughts on wild,...Read more of this...

Lui Et Elle

by D. H. Lawrence
 She is large and matronly
And rather dirty,
A little sardonic-looking, as if domesticity had driven her to it.
Though what she does, except lay four eggs at random in the garden once a year
And put up with her husband,
I don't know.

She likes to eat.
She hurries up, striding reared on long uncanny legs
When food is going.
Oh yes, she can make haste when...Read more of this...

Dr. sam

by Eugene Field
 TO MISS GRACE KING

Down in the old French quarter,
Just out of Rampart street,
I wend my way
At close of day
Unto the quaint retreat
Where lives the Voodoo Doctor
By some esteemed a sham,
Yet I'll declare there's none elsewhere
So skilled as Doctor Sam
With the claws of a deviled crawfish,
The juice of the prickly prune,
And the quivering dew
From a yarb that grew
In the light...Read more of this...

Learning the Trees

by Howard Nemerov
 Before you can learn the trees, you have to learn
The language of the trees. That's done indoors,
Out of a book, which now you think of it
Is one of the transformations of a tree.

The words themselves are a delight to learn,
You might be in a foreign land of terms
Like samara, capsule, drupe, legume and pome,
Where bark is papery, plated, warty...Read more of this...

In a Southern Garden

by Dorothea Mackeller
 WHEN the tall bamboos are clicking to the restless little breeze, 
And bats begin their jerky skimming flight, 
And the creamy scented blossoms of the dark pittosporum trees, 
Grow sweeter with the coming of the night. 

And the harbour in the distance lies beneath a purple pall, 
And nearer, at the garden’s lowest fringe, 
Loud the water soughs and...Read more of this...

Elegy: Walking the Line

by Edgar Bowers
 Every month or so, Sundays, we walked the line,
The limit and the boundary. Past the sweet gum
Superb above the cabin, along the wall—
Stones gathered from the level field nearby
When first we cleared it. (Angry bumblebees
Stung the two mules. They kicked. Thirteen, I ran.)
And then the field: thread-leaf maple, deciduous
Magnolia, hybrid broom, and, further down,
In light shade, one Franklinia Alatamaha
In...Read more of this...

The Golf Walk

by Ellis Parker Butler
 Behold, my child, this touching scene,
The golfer on the golfing-green;
Pray mark his legs’ uncanny swing,
The golf-walk is a gruesome thing!

See how his arms and shoulders ride
Above his legs in haughty pride,
While over bunker, hill and lawn
His feet, relentless, drag him on.

And does the man walk always so?
Nay! nay I my child, and eke, oh! no!
It is a gait he...Read more of this...

I Want To Die In My Own Bed

by Yehuda Amichai
 All night the army came up from Gilgal
To get to the killing field, and that's all.
In the ground, warf and woof, lay the dead.
I want to die in My own bed.
Like slits in a tank, their eyes were uncanny,
I'm always the few and they are the many.
I must answer. They can interrogate My head.
But I want to die in...Read more of this...

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