Famous Unfair Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Unfair poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous unfair poems. These examples illustrate what a famous unfair poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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...d again. a friend wrote me of your suicide
3 or 4 months after it happened. if I had met you
I would probably have been unfair to you or you
to me. it was best like this....Read more of this...
by
Bukowski, Charles
...Sam, who slips with ease
His clumsy hold; and, dodging round,
Sukey is tumbled on the ground!--
`See what it is to play unfair!
Where cheating is, there's mischief there.'
But Roger still pursues the chase,--
`He sees! he sees!' cries, softly, Grace;
`O Roger, thou, unskill'd in art,
Must, surer bound, go thro' thy part!'
Now Kitty, pert, repeats the rimes,
And Roger turns him round three times,
Then pauses ere he starts--but Dick
Was mischief bent upon a trick;
Down on his h...Read more of this...
by
Blake, William
...te the greatest poet
That ever lived anywhere.
You say you’re going to write great music—
I chose that first: it’s unfair.
Besides, now I can’t be the greatest painter and
do Christ and angels, or lovely pears
and apples and grapes on a green dish,
or storms at sea, or anything lovely,
Because that’s been taken by Claire.
It’s stupid to be an engine-driver,
And soldiers are horrible men.
I won’t be a tailor, I won’t be a sailor,
And gardener’s taken by Ben....Read more of this...
by
Graves, Robert
...iful is fair. The just is fair.
Yet one is commonplace and one is rare,
One everywhere, one scarcely anywhere.
So fair unfair a world. Had we the wit
To use the surplus for the deficit,
We'd make a fairer fairer world of it....Read more of this...
by
Francis, Robert
...Sleeping in fever, I am unfair
to know just who you are:
hung up like a pig on exhibit,
the delicate wrists,
the beard drooling blood and vinegar;
hooked to your own weight,
jolting toward death under your nameplate.
Everyone in this crowd needs a bath.
I am dressed in rags.
The mother wears blue.
You grind your teeth
and with each new breath
your jaws gape and your diaper sags.
I...Read more of this...
by
Sexton, Anne
...orus
And then there's the statue of Robert Burns in George Square,
And the treatment he received when living was very unfair;
Now, when he's dead, Scotland's sons for him do mourn,
But, alas! unto them he can never return.
Chorus
Then as for Kelvin Grove, it is most lovely to be seen
With its beautiful flowers and trees so green,
And a magnificent water-fountain spouting up very high,
Where the people can quench their thirst when they feel dry.
Chorus
Beautiful city...Read more of this...
by
McGonagall, William Topaz
...s;
That chalky fool from Astolat
With all her dying and her pains!-
Thank God, I helped him over that.
I found him not unfair to see-
I like a man with peppered hair!
And thus it came about. Ah, me,
Tristram was busied otherwhere....
A nobler king had never breath-
I say it now, and said it then.
Who weds with such is wed till death
And wedded stays in Heaven. Amen....Read more of this...
by
Parker, Dorothy
...et of the jaw, a fierce pulse in the throat
Working away like Jack Doyle's after he'd run the mile.
Aunt Martha had an unfair prejudice
Against them (as well as being cold
Toward bats.) She was pretty inflexible in this,
Being a spinster and all, and old.
So we used to slip them into her knitting box.
In the evening she'd bring in things to mend
And a nice surprise would slide out from under the socks.
It broadened her life, as Joe said. Joe was my friend.
But we never d...Read more of this...
by
Hecht, Anthony
...He'd spent his life trying to control the names
people gave him;
oh the unfair and the accurate equally hurt.
Just recently he'd been a son-of-a-*****
and sweetheart in the same day,
and once again knew what antonyms
love and control are, and how comforting
it must be to have a business card -
Manager, Specialist - and believe what it says.
Who, in fact, didn't want his most useful name
to enter with him,
when he entere...Read more of this...
by
Dunn, Stephen
...Larder -- terse and Militant --
Unknown -- refreshing things --
His Character -- a Tonic --
His future -- a Dispute --
Unfair an Immortality
That leaves this Neighbor out --...Read more of this...
by
Dickinson, Emily
...have kneaded you and i
from the same dough
rolled us out as one on the baking sheet
must have suddenly realized
how unfair it was
to put that much magic in one person
and sadly split that dough in two
how else is it that
when i look in the mirror
i am looking at you
when you breathe
my own lungs fill with air
that we just met but we
have known each other our whole lives
if we were not made as one to begin with...Read more of this...
by
Kaur, Rupi
...truth, I said,
Teach me the way things go.
All the other lads there
Were itching to have a bash,
But I thought wanting unfair:
It and finding out clash.
So he patted my head, booming Boy,
There's no green in your eye:
Sit here and watch the hail
Of occurence clobber life out
To a shape no one sees -
Dare you look at that straight?
Oh thank you, I said, Oh yes please,
And sat down to wait.
Half life is over now,
And I meet full face on dark mornings
The bestial visor, bent ...Read more of this...
by
Larkin, Philip
...with gentle work did frame
The lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell,
Will play the tyrants to the very same
And that unfair which fairly doth excel;
For never-resting Time leads summer on
To hideous winter and confounds him there,
Sap checked with frost and lusty leaves quite gone,
Beauty o'ersnowed and bareness everywhere.
Then, were not summer's distillation left
A liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass,
Beauty's effect with beauty were bereft,
Nor it nor no remembrance ...Read more of this...
by
Shakespeare, William
...with gentle work did frame
The lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell,
Will play the tyrants to the very same
And that unfair which fairly doth excel:
For never-resting time leads summer on
To hideous winter and confounds him there;
Sap cheque'd with frost and lusty leaves quite gone,
Beauty o'ersnow'd and bareness every where:
Then, were not summer's distillation left,
A liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass,
Beauty's effect with beauty were bereft,
Nor it nor no remembran...Read more of this...
by
Shakespeare, William
...with gentle work did frame
The lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell,
Will play the tyrants to the very same
And that unfair which fairly doth excel;
For never-resting time leads summer on
To hideous winter, and confounds him there;
Sap checked with frost, and lusty leaves quite gone,
Beauty o'er-snowed and bareness every where:
Then were not summer's distillation left,
A liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass,
Beauty's effect with beauty were bereft,
Nor it, nor no remembr...Read more of this...
by
Shakespeare, William
...istrict desolate and dry;
Watched the Local Government yearly pass him by;
Wondered where the hitch was; called it most unfair.
. . . . .
That was seven years ago -- and he still is there!...Read more of this...
by
Kipling, Rudyard
...arines held their own while engaged hand-to-hand,
And the courage they displayed was really very grand;
But it would be unfair to praise one corps more than another,
Because each man fought as if he'd been avenging the death of a brother.
The Berkshire men and the Naval Brigade fought with might and main,
And, thank God! the British have defeated the Arabs again,
And have added fresh laurels to their name,
Which will be enrolled in the book of fame.
'Tis lamentable to thin...Read more of this...
by
McGonagall, William Topaz
...eath and letters. He would write,
"Nothing is better than life." But was it? Yes, the fight
Against the false and the unfair
Was always worth it. So was gardening. Civilize.
Cajoling, scolding, screaming, cleverest of them all,
He'd had the other children in a holy war
Against the infamous grown-ups; and, like a child, been sly
And humble, when there was occassion for
The two-faced answer or the plain protective lie,
But, patient like a peasant, waited for their fa...Read more of this...
by
Auden, Wystan Hugh (W H)
...ot allowed the same liberty,
From taxation every one of them should be set free;
And if they are not, it is really very unfair,
And an act of injustice I most solemnly declare.
Women, farmers, have no protection as the law now stands;
And many of them have lost their property and lands,
And have been turned out of their beautiful farms
By the unjust laws of the land and the sheriffs' alarms.
And in my opinion, such treatment is very cruel;
And fair play, 'tis said, is a p...Read more of this...
by
McGonagall, William Topaz
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