Famous Unfriendly Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Unfriendly poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous unfriendly poems. These examples illustrate what a famous unfriendly poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Yeats, William Butler
...Speech after long silence; it is right,
All other lovers being estranged or dead,
Unfriendly lamplight hid under its shade,
The curtains drawn upon unfriendly night,
That we descant and yet again descant
Upon the supreme theme of Art and Song:
Bodily decrepitude is wisdom; young
We loved each other and were ignorant....Read more of this...
by
Petrarch, Francesco
...there to join:But, ah! each charm aboveWas veil'd from sight in an unfriendly cloud:Stung by a lurking snake, as flowers that pineHer head she gently bow'd,And joyful pass'd on high, perchance secure:Alas! that in the world grief only should endure. My song! in each sad ch...Read more of this...
by
Petrarch, Francesco
...own'd his reign,I've known, nor hope to know: repose is fledFrom my unfriendly bed,Nor herb nor spells can bring it back again.By fraud and force he gain'd and guards his powerO'er every sense; soundeth from steeple near,By day, by night, the hour,I feel his hand in every stroke I hear....Read more of this...
by
Wilcox, Ella Wheeler
...and only then,
Of those intrepid and unflinching men
Who knew no homes save ever moving tents,
And who 'twixt fierce unfriendly elements
And wild barbarians warred. Yet unfraid,
Since love impels thy strains, sing, sing, my modest maid.
II.
Relate how Custer in midwinter sought
Far Washita's cold shores; tell why he fought
With savage nomads fortressed in deep snows.
Woman, thou source of half the sad world's woes
And all its joys, what sanguinary strife...Read more of this...
by
Betjeman, John
...no proper business there.
Two field mice who have no desire
To be baptized, invade the choir.
A large and most unfriendly rat
Comes in to see what we are at.
He says he thinks there is no God
And yet he comes ... it's rather odd.
This year he stole a sheaf of wheat
(It screened our special preacher's seat),
And prosperous mice from fields away
Come in to hear our organ play,
And under cover of its notes
Ate through the altar's sheaf of oats.
A...Read more of this...
by
Brooke, Rupert
...life outside.
But I found no lips of comfort,
No home in the moon's light
(I, little and lone and frightened
In the unfriendly night),
And no meaning in the voices. . . .
Far over the lands and through
The dark, beyond the ocean,
I willed to think of YOU!
For I knew, had you been with me
I'd have known the words of night,
Found peace of heart, gone gladly
In comfort of that light.
Oh! the wind with soft beguiling
Would have stolen my thought away;
And...Read more of this...
by
Dunn, Stephen
...qualor of neglect.
Everytime the kids turn their backs
I touch my wife's breasts
and when she checks the dinner
the unfriendly cat on the dishwasher
wants to rub heads, starts to speak
with his little motor and violin--
everything, everyone is intelligible
in the language of touch,
and we sit down to dinner inarticulate
as blood, all difficulties postponed
because the weather is so good....Read more of this...
by
Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns)
...
liquor and women,
And the night-fires going out, and the
lack of shelters,
And the cities hostile and the towns
unfriendly
And the villages dirty and charging high
prices:
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all
night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears,
saying
That this was all folly.
Then at dawn we came down to a
temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of
vegetation;
With a running stream...Read more of this...
by
Robinson, Mary Darby
...on the spotless surface play:
She purr'd around its circle wide,
And gazed, and long'd, and mew'd and sigh'd!
But Fate, unfriendly, did that hour controul,
She overset the cream, and smash'd the gilded bowl!
As MISTRESS GURTON heard the thief,
She started from her easy chair,
And, quite unmindful of her grief,
Began aloud to swear!
"Curse that voracious beast!" she cried,
"Here SUSAN bring a cord--
I'll hang the vicious, ugly creature--
"The veriest plague e'er form'd by nat...Read more of this...
by
von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang
...ifficulties attending its execution, or received
by the critic, who will judge of it only by its own merits, with
the unfriendly welcome which it very probably deserves, I trust
that I shall at least be pardoned for making an attempt, a failure
in which does not necessarily imply disgrace, and which, by leading
the way, may perhaps become the means of inducing some abler and
more worthy (but not more earnest) labourer to enter upon the same
field, the riches of which w...Read more of this...
by
Arnold, Matthew
...acked heart and brain
Afford no balm?
Dost thou tonight behold,
Here, through the moonlight on this English grass,
The unfriendly palace in the Thracian wild?
Dost thou again peruse
With hot cheeks and seared eyes
The too clear web, and thy dumb sister's shame?
Dost thou once more assay
Thy flight, and feel come over thee,
Poor fugitive, the feathery change
Once more, and once more seem to make resound
With love and hate, triumph and agony,
Lone Daulis, and the high Cephissi...Read more of this...
by
Petrarch, Francesco
...N class=i0>As long as wild beasts love umbrageous vales,O'er those bright eyes shall hang th' unfriendly cloudMy own that moistens with continual rain;And in that lovely breast be harden'd iceWhich forces still from mine so dolorous winds. Yet well ought I to pardon all the windsBut for the love of ...Read more of this...
by
Petrarch, Francesco
...ark of pity stirr'dIn the hard heart which frost in summer knew.Th' unfriendly cloud, whose cold veil o'er it grew,Broke at the first breath of mine ardent wordOr low'ring still she others' blame incurr'dHer bright and killing eyes who thus withdrewNo ruth for self I crave, for her no hate;I wish ...Read more of this...
by
Turner Smith, Charlotte
...The unhappy exile, whom his fates confine
To the bleak coast of some unfriendly isle,
Cold, barren, desart, where no harvests smile,
But thirst and hunger on the rocks repine;
When, from some promontory's fearful brow,
Sun after sun he hopeless sees decline
In the broad shipless sea—perhaps may know
Such heartless pain, such blank despair as mine;
And, if a flattering cloud appears to show
The fancied semblance of a distant s...Read more of this...
by
Muir, Edwin
...Unfriendly friendly universe,
I pack your stars into my purse,
And bid you so farewell.
That I can leave you, quite go out,
Go out, go out beyond all doubt,
My father says, is the miracle.
You are so great, and I so small:
I am nothing, you are all:
Being nothing, I can take this way.
Oh I need neither rise nor fall,
For when I do not move at al...Read more of this...
by
Hugo, Victor
...e daughters mine! will naught abate
Your fierce interminable hate?
Still am I doomed to rue the fate
That such unfriendly neighbors made?
The while ye might, in peaceful cheer,
Mirror upon your waters clear,
Semlin! thy Gothic steeples dear,
And thy bright minarets, Belgrade!
Fraser's Magazine
...Read more of this...
by
Baudelaire, Charles
...nd, remember, that's the motto of the world.
`Ne'er assail the shaky ladders Fame has from her niches hung,
Lest unfriendly heels above you grind your fingers from the rung;
Or the fools who idle under, envious of your fair renown,
Heedless of the pain you suffer, do their worst to shake you down.
At the praise of men, or censure, let your lip in scorn be curled,
`Self and Pelf', my friend, remember, is the motto of the world.
`Flowing founts of inspirati...Read more of this...
by
Lowell, Amy
...
14
For Kurler had a daughter, young and gay,
Carefully reared and shielded, rarely seen.
But on one black and most unfriendly day
Grootver had caught her as she passed between
The kitchen and the garden. She had run
In fear of him, his evil leering eye,
And when he came she, bolted in her room,
Refused to show, though gave no reason why.
The spinning of her future had begun,
On quiet nights she heard the whirring of her doom.
15
Max mended an old goosequill ...Read more of this...
by
Mueller, Lisel
...that they see daylight
when they remember the laughter of women
It runs across water that divides,
and reconciles two unfriendly shores
like flares that signal the news to each other
What a language it is, the laughter of women,
high-flying and subversive.
Long before law and scripture
we heard the laughter, we understood freedom....Read more of this...
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