Famous Unconscious Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A Grave

...xpression is no longer a protest; the fish no longer
 investigate them
for their bones have not lasted:
men lower nets, unconscious of the fact that they are
 desecrating a grave,
and row quickly away-the blades of the oars
moving together like the feet of water-spiders as if there were
 no such thing as death.
The wrinkles progress among themselves in a phalanx—
beautiful under networks of foam,
and fade breathlessly while the sea rustles in and out of the
 seaweed;
the bird...Read more of this...
by Moore, Marianne


A poem on divine revelation

...stern world. 


These men we honour, and their names shall last 
Sweet in the mouths and memory of men; 
Or if vain man unconscious of their worth, 
Refuse a tear when in some lonely vale 
He sees those faithful laid; each breeze shall sigh, 
Each passing gale shall mourn, each tree shall bend 
Its heavy head, in sorrow o'er their tombs, 
And some sad stream run ever weeping by. 
Weep not O stream, nor mourn thou passing gale, 
Beneath those grassy tombs their bodies lie, 
Bu...Read more of this...
by Brackenridge, Hugh Henry

A Riddle Song

...anion of the city’s busiest streets, through the assemblage, 
It and its radiations constantly glide.

In looks of fair unconscious babes, 
Or strangely in the coffin’d dead, 
Or show of breaking dawn or stars by night, 
As some dissolving delicate film of dreams, 
Hiding yet lingering.

Two little breaths of words comprising it. 
Two words, yet all from first to last comprised in it. 

How ardently for it! 
How many ships have sail’d and sunk for it! 
How many travelers star...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

Alastor: or the Spirit of Solitude

...ne foliaged lattice twinkling fair,
Or painted bird, sleeping beneath the moon,
Or gorgeous insect floating motionless,
Unconscious of the day, ere yet his wings
Have spread their glories to the gaze of noon.

Hither the Poet came. His eyes beheld
Their own wan light through the reflected lines 
Of his thin hair, distinct in the dark depth
Of that still fountain; as the human heart,
Gazing in dreams over the gloomy grave,
Sees its own treacherous likeness there. He heard
The ...Read more of this...
by Shelley, Percy Bysshe

Christabel

...ook of dull and treacherous hate!
And thus she stood, in dizzy trance,
Still picturing that look askance
With forced unconscious sympathy
Full before her father's view-
As far as such a look could be
In eyes so innocent and blue!

And when the trance was o'er, the maid
Paused awhile, and inly prayed:
Then falling at the Baron's feet,
'By my mother's soul do I entreat
That thou this woman send away!'
She said: and more she could not say;
For what she knew she cou...Read more of this...
by Coleridge, Samuel Taylor


Custer

...ands, a friend
Draws near the hunted Sioux, to strengthen and defend.


XI.
'While walking in the fields I saw a star; 
Unconsciously I followed it afar-
It led me on to valleys filled with light, 
Where danced our noble chieftains slain in fight.
Black Kettle, first of all that host I knew, 
He whom the strong armed Custer foully slew.
And then a spirit took me by the hand, 
The Great Messiah King who comes to free the land.



XII.
'Suns were his eyes, a speaking tear his v...Read more of this...
by Wilcox, Ella Wheeler

Dickinson Poems by Number

...e—

Of Pictures, the Discloser—
The Poet—it is He—
Entitles Us—by Contrast—
To ceaseless Poverty—

Of Portion—so unconscious—
The Robbing—could not harm—
Himself—to Him—a Fortune—
Exterior—to Time—

466

'Tis little I—could care for Pearls—
Who own the ample sea—
Or Brooches—when the Emperor—
With Rubies—pelteth me—

Or Gold—who am the Prince of Mines—
Or Diamonds—when have I
A Diadem to fit a Dome—
Continual upon me—

474

They put Us far apart—
As...Read more of this...
by Dickinson, Emily

Endymion: Book I

...e young children's children bred
Thermopylæ its heroes--not yet dead,
But in old marbles ever beautiful.
High genitors, unconscious did they cull
Time's sweet first-fruits--they danc'd to weariness,
And then in quiet circles did they press
The hillock turf, and caught the latter end
Of some strange history, potent to send
A young mind from its bodily tenement.
Or they might watch the quoit-pitchers, intent
On either side; pitying the sad death
Of Hyacinthus, when the cruel br...Read more of this...
by Keats, John

Gertrude of Wyoming

...d culture well repay,
And more engaging grew, from pleasing day to day.

I may not paint those thousand infant charms;
(Unconscious fascination, undesign'd!)
The orison repeated in his arms,
For God to bless her sire and all mankind;
The book, the bosom on his knee reclined,
Or how sweet fairy-lore he heard her con,
(The playmate ere the teacher of her mind:)
All uncompanion'd else her heart had gone
Till now, in Gertrude's eyes, their ninth blue summer shone.

And summer was...Read more of this...
by Campbell, Thomas

Interim

...hs
For its new dead! Not Truth, but Faith, it is
That keeps the world alive. If all at once
Faith were to slacken,—that unconscious faith
Which must, I know, yet be the corner-stone
Of all believing,—birds now flying fearless
Across would drop in terror to the earth;
Fishes would drown; and the all-governing reins
Would tangle in the frantic hands of God
And the worlds gallop headlong to destruction!

O God, I see it now, and my sick brain
Staggers and swoons! How often over ...Read more of this...
by St. Vincent Millay, Edna

Lara

..., 
Where weakness, strength, vice, virtue, sunk supine, 
Alike in naked helplessness recline; 
Glad for awhile to heave unconscious breath, 
Yet wake to wrestle with the dread of death, 
And shun, though day but dawn on ills increased, 
That sleep, the loveliest, since it dreams the least. 

____________ 

CANTO THE SECOND. 

I. 

Night wanes — the vapours round the mountains curl'd, 
Melt into morn, and Light awakes the world. 
Man has another day to swell the past, 
And lea...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)

Mementos

...layed: 
She still began with quiet sense, 
But oft the force of eloquence 
Came to her lips in aid; 
Language and voice unconscious changed, 
And thoughts, in other words arranged, 
Her fervid soul transfused 
Into the hearts of those who heard, 
And transient strength and ardour stirred, 
In minds to strength unused. 
Yet in gay crowd or festal glare, 
Grave and retiring was her air; 
'Twas seldom, save with me alone, 
That fire of feeling freely shone; 
She loved not awe's ...Read more of this...
by Bronte, Charlotte

Pickthorn Manor

...pped 
grass. The days went by
Threaded with talk and verses. Green 
leaves pushed Through blossoms stubbornly.
Gervase, unconscious of dishonesty,
Fell into strong and watchful loving, free
He thought, since always would his lips be hushed.

XXVII
But lips do not stay silent at command, And 
Gervase strove in vain to order his.
Luckily Eunice did not understand That he but read himself 
aloud, for this
Their friendship would have snapped. She treated him And 
spoilt him like ...Read more of this...
by Lowell, Amy

Song of the Redwood-Tree

...ional Will, lying in your abysms, conceal’d, but ever alert,
You past and present purposes, tenaciously pursued, may-be unconscious of
 yourselves, 
Unswerv’d by all the passing errors, perturbations of the surface; 
You vital, universal, deathless germs, beneath all creeds, arts, statutes,
 literatures,

Here build your homes for good—establish here—These areas entire, Lands of the Western
 Shore, 
We pledge, we dedicate to you.

For man of you—your characteristic Race, 
Her...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

The Emigrants: Book I

...ith matted sea-weed strewn,
A softer form reclines; around her run,
On the rough shingles, or the chalky bourn,
Her gay unconscious children, soon amus'd;
Who pick the fretted stone, or glossy shell,
Or crimson plant marine: or they contrive
The fairy vessel, with its ribband sail
And gilded paper pennant: in the pool,
Left by the salt wave on the yielding sands,
They launch the mimic navy--Happy age!
Unmindful of the miseries of Man!--
Alas! too long a victim to distress,
Th...Read more of this...
by Turner Smith, Charlotte

The Emigrants: Book II

...ccumulated horror, sinks
The desolate mourner; yet, in Death itself,
True to maternal tenderness, she tries
To save the unconscious infant from the storm
In which she perishes; and to protect
This last dear object of her ruin'd hopes
From prowling monsters, that from other hills,
More inaccessible, and wilder wastes,
Lur'd by the scent of slaughter, follow fierce
Contending hosts, and to polluted fields
Add dire increase of horrors--But alas!
The Mother and the Infant perish ...Read more of this...
by Turner Smith, Charlotte

The Lady of the Lake

...farewell.
     Now with a trusty mountain-guide,
     And his dark stag-hounds by his side,
     He parts,—the maid, unconscious still,
     Watched him wind slowly round the hill;
     But when his stately form was hid,
     The guardian in her bosom chid,—
     'Thy Malcolm! vain and selfish maid!'
     'T was thus upbraiding conscience said,—
     'Not so had Malcolm idly hung
     On the smooth phrase of Southern tongue;
     Not so had Malcolm strained his eye...Read more of this...
by Scott, Sir Walter

The Retired Cat

...sleep her last,
When in came, housewifely inclin'd
The chambermaid, and shut it fast;
By no malignity impell'd,
But all unconscious whom it held.

Awaken'd by the shock, cried Puss,
"Was ever cat attended thus!
The open drawer was left, I see,
Merely to prove a nest for me.
For soon as I was well compos'd,
Then came the maid, and it was clos'd.
How smooth these kerchiefs, and how sweet!
Oh, what a delicate retreat!
I will resign myself to rest
Till Sol, declining in the west,...Read more of this...
by Cowper, William

The Three Voices

...as plain,
Yet madly strove with might and main
To get the upper hand again. 

Fixing her eyes upon the beach,
As though unconscious of his speech,
She said "Each gives to more than each." 

He could not answer yea or nay:
He faltered "Gifts may pass away."
Yet knew not what he meant to say. 

"If that be so," she straight replied,
"Each heart with each doth coincide.
What boots it? For the world is wide." 

"The world is but a Thought," said he:
"The vast unfathomable sea
Is ...Read more of this...
by Carroll, Lewis

The White Cliffs

...ohnnie and I were married. England then 
Had been a week at war, and all the men 
Wore uniform, as English people can, 
Unconscious of it. Percy, the best man, 
As thin as paper and as smart as paint, 
Bade us good-by with admirable restraint, 
Went from the church to catch his train to hell; 
And died-saving his batman from a shell. 

XXIII 
We went down to Devon, 
 In a warm summer rain, 
Knowing that our happiness 
 Might never come again; 
I, not forgetting, 
 'Till death...Read more of this...
by Miller, Alice Duer

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