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Famous Unforeseen Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Burns, Robert
...ily bread is all I need, I do not much regard her, O.


When sometimes by my labour, I earn a little money, O,
Some unforeseen misfortune comes gen’rally upon me, O;
Mischance, mistake, or by neglect, or my goodnatur’d folly, O:
But come what will, I’ve sworn it still, I’ll ne’er be melancholy, O.


All you who follow wealth and power with unremitting ardour, O,
The more in this you look for bliss, you leave your view the farther, O:
Had you the wealth Potosi boasts, ...Read more of this...



by Byron, George (Lord)
...nor I on shore.

If my inheritance of storms hath been
In other elements, and on the rocks
Of perils, overlooked or unforeseen,
I have sustained my share of worldly shocks,
The fault was mine; nor do I seek to screen
My errors with defensive paradox;
I have been cunning in mine overthrow,
The careful pilot of my proper woe.

Mine were my faults, and mine be their reward,
My whole life was a contest, since the day
That gave me being, gave me that which marred
The gift,...Read more of this...

by Hopkins, Gerard Manley
...lsewhere; leave comfort root-room; let joy size
At God knows when to God knows what; whose smile
's not wrung, see you; unforeseen times rather—as skies
Betweenpie mountains—lights a lovely mile....Read more of this...

by Philips, Katherine
...sissitude of humane joy.

I did but see him and he dis-appear'd,
I did but pluck the Rose-bud and it fell,
A sorrow unforeseen and scarcely fear'd,
For ill can mortals their afflictions spell.

And now (sweet Babe) what can my trembling heart
Suggest to right my doleful fate or thee,
Tears are my Muse and sorrow all my Art,
So piercing groans must be thy Elogy.

Thus whilst no eye is witness of my mone,
I grieve thy loss ( Ah boy too dear to live)
And let the unco...Read more of this...

by Hope, Alec Derwent (A D)
...
And yet the pattern emerges always new 
The marriage of linked cause and random chance 
Gives birth perpetually to the unforeseen.

One parable for the body and the mind: 
With science and heredity to thank 
The heart is quite predictable as a pump, 
But, let love change its beat, the choice is blind. 
'Now' is a cross-roads where all maps prove blank, 
And no one knows which way the cat will jump.

So here stand I, by birth a cross between 
Determined pattern an...Read more of this...



by Milton, John
...ledge 
Of dalliance had with thee in Heaven, and joys 
Then sweet, now sad to mention, through dire change 
Befallen us unforeseen, unthought-of--know, 
I come no enemy, but to set free 
From out this dark and dismal house of pain 
Both him and thee, and all the heavenly host 
Of Spirits that, in our just pretences armed, 
Fell with us from on high. From them I go 
This uncouth errand sole, and one for all 
Myself expose, with lonely steps to tread 
Th' unfounded Deep, an...Read more of this...

by Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...enchaining every will,
That from the depths of unrecorded time
Have drawn all-influencing virtue, pass
Unrecogniz'd or unforeseen by thee,
Soul of the Universe! eternal spring
Of life and death, of happiness and woe,
Of all that chequers the phantasmal scene
That floats before our eyes in wavering light,
Which gleams but on the darkness of our prison,
Whose chains and massy walls
We feel, but cannot see.


"Spirit of Nature! all-sufficing Power,
Necessity! thou mother of...Read more of this...

by Arnold, Matthew
...ee.

Fifteen years have gone round
Since thou arosest to tread,
In the summer-morning, the road
Of death, at a call unforeseen,
Sudden. For fifteen years,
We who till then in thy shade
Rested as under the boughs
Of a mighty oak, have endured
Sunshine and rain as we might,
Bare, unshaded, alone,
Lacking the shelter of thee.

O strong soul, by what shore
Tarriest thou now? For that force,
Surely, has not been left vain!
Somewhere, surely afar,
In the sounding labour...Read more of this...

by Borges, Jorge Luis
...hat opens a house to us,
the smell of a library, or of sandalwood,
the former name of a street,
the colors of a map,
an unforeseen etymology,
the smoothness of a filed fingernail,
the date we were looking for,
the twelve dark bell-strokes, tolling as we count,
a sudden physical pain.

Eight million Shinto deities
travel secretly throughout the earth.
Those modest gods touch us--
touch us and move on....Read more of this...

by Butler, Ellis Parker
...lds a royal meal,
We may carol the praises of ruby wine;
But when, on some long and steep incline,
In a manner entirely unforeseen
The motor stops with a last sad whine--
Then ho! For a gallon of gasoline!

When the air is crisp and the brooks congeal
And our sleigh glides on with a speed divine
While the gay bells echo with peal on peal,
We may carol the praises of ruby wine;
But when, with perverseness most condign,
In the same harsh snowstorm, cold and keen,
My auto stops ...Read more of this...

by Stevens, Wallace
...ss, puerile tints 
505 Of spiced and weathery rouges, should complex 
506 The stopper to indulgent fatalist 
507 Was unforeseen. First Crispin smiled upon 
508 His goldenest demoiselle, inhabitant, 
509 She seemed, of a country of the capuchins, 
510 So delicately blushed, so humbly eyed, 
511 Attentive to a coronal of things 
512 Secret and singular. Second, upon 
513 A second similar counterpart, a maid 
514 Most sisterly to the first, not yet awake 
515 ...Read more of this...

by Chaucer, Geoffrey
...l, for thy sickerness*: *security
Upon thy glade days have in thy mind
The unware* woe of harm, that comes behind. *unforeseen

For, shortly for to tell it at a word,
The Soudan and the Christians every one
Were all *to-hewn and sticked* at the board, *cut to pieces*
But it were only Dame Constance alone.
This olde Soudaness, this cursed crone,
Had with her friendes done this cursed deed,
For she herself would all the country lead.

Nor there was Syrian that was c...Read more of this...

by Hugo, Victor
...In their infamous dread, 
 Shrivelled members of brass! 
 
 It grows angry, flows on, 
 Silver towers fall down 
 Unforeseen, like a dream 
 In its green and red stream, 
 Which lights up the walls 
 Ere one crashes and falls, 
 Like the changeable scale 
 Of a lizard's bright mail. 
 Agate, porphyry, cracks 
 And is melted to wax! 
 Bend low to their doom 
 These stones of the tomb! 
 E'en the great marble giant 
 Called Nabo, sways pliant 
 Like a tree; wh...Read more of this...

by Dickinson, Emily
...ate with Joy --
He compliments existence
Until allured away

By Seasons or his Children --
Adult and urgent grown --
Or unforeseen aggrandizement
Or, happily, Renown --

By Contrast certifying
The Bird of Birds is gone --
How nullified the Meadow --
Her Sorcerer withdrawn!...Read more of this...

by Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...t. 
Meanwhile, I marvel; for in you, it seems, 
Heredity outshines environment. 

What lingering bit of Belial, unforeseen, 
Survives and amplifies itself in you?
What manner of devilry has ever been 
That your obliquity may never do? 

Humility befits a father’s eyes, 
But not a friend of us would have him weep. 
Admiring everything that lives and dies,
Theophilus, we like you best asleep. 

Sleep—sleep; and let us find another man 
To lend another name less ...Read more of this...

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