Get Your Premium Membership

Famous Unforgiving Poems by Famous Poets

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

See also:

by Lanier, Sidney
...Sun?
Wilt warm the world with peace and dove-desire?
Or wilt thou, ere this very day be done,
Blaze Saladin still, with unforgiving fire?...Read more of this...



by Yeats, William Butler
...mbered nests
Of aweless birds, and round their stirless feet
The joyous flocks of deer and antelope,
Who never hear the unforgiving hound.
Swear!

Vijaya. By the parents of the gods, I swear.

Anashuya [sings]. I have forgiven, O new star!
Maybe you have not heard of us, you have come forth so newly,
You hunter of the fields afar!
Ah, you will know my loved one by his hunter's arrows
truly,
Shoot on him shafts of quietness, that he may ever keep
A lonely laugh...Read more of this...

by Berryman, John
...s,
human (half) & down here as he is,
with probably insulting mail to open
and certainly unworthy words to hear
and his unforgiving memory.

—I seldom go to films. They are too exciting,
said the Honourable Possum.
—It takes me so long to read the 'paper,
said to me one day a novelist hot as a firecracker,
because I have to identify myself with everyone in it,
including the corpses, pal.'

Kierkegaard wanted a society, to refuse to read 'papers,
and that w...Read more of this...

by Warren, Robert Penn
...gold of our error.

Look!Look!he is climbing the last light
Who knows neither Time nor error, and under
Whose eye, unforgiving, the world, unforgiven, swings
Into shadow.

Long now,
The last thrush is still, the last bat
Now cruises in his sharp hieroglyphics.His wisdom
Is ancient, too, and immense.The star
Is steady, like Plato, over the mountain.

If there were no wind we might, we think, hear
The earth grind on its axis, or history
Drip in darkness lik...Read more of this...

by Kipling, Rudyard
...
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, 
If all men count with you, but none too much: 
If you can fill the unforgiving minute 
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run, 
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it, 
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son! ...Read more of this...



by Bukowski, Charles
...people
used flowers, used love
I need you
I need you
I need you:
it has run away
like a horse or a dog,
dead or lost
or unforgiving....Read more of this...

by Larkin, Philip
...proud unfruitful sea,
East and west the ships came back
Happily or unhappily:

But the third went wide and far
Into an unforgiving sea
Under a fire-spilling star,
And it was rigged for a long journey....Read more of this...

by Cowper, William
...ountry's shame!
They made us many soldiers. Chatham, still
Consulting England's happiness at home,
Secur'd it by an unforgiving frown
If any wrong'd her. Wolfe, where'er he fought,
Put so much of his heart into his act,
That his example had a magnet's force,
And all were swift to follow whom all lov'd.
Those suns are set. Oh, rise some other such!
Or all that we have left is empty talk
Of old achievements, and despair of new....


There is a pl...Read more of this...

by Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...smiles, and her cold hush berates him 
Beneath his hard half of the cross; 
They wonder why it ever was; 
And she, the unforgiving, hates him 
More for her lack than for her loss.

He feeds with pride his indecision, 
And shrinks from what wil not occur, 
Bequeathing with infirm derision 
His ashes to the days that were, 
Before she made him prisoner; 
And labors to retrieve the vision 
That he must once have had of her.

He waits, and there awaits an ending, 
And he...Read more of this...

by Hugo, Victor
...Blamed out of season. Pardon me! 
 You must forgive—for sad are we. 
 
 The young should not be hard and cold 
 And unforgiving to the old. 
 Children each morn your souls ope out 
 Like windows to the shining day, 
 Oh, miracle that comes about, 
 The miracle that children gay 
 Have happiness and goodness too, 
 Caressed by destiny are you, 
 Charming you are, if you but play. 
 But we with living overwrought, 
 And full of grave and sombre thought, 
 Are snap...Read more of this...

by Brooke, Rupert
...,
Into the open. Down the supernal roads,
With plumes a-tossing, purple flags far flung,
Rank upon rank, unbridled, unforgiving,
Thundered the black battalions of the Gods....Read more of this...

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Unforgiving poems.


Book: Reflection on the Important Things