Famous Unintelligible Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Departure

...Do you, that have naught other to lament, 
Never, my Love, repent 
Of how, that July afternoon, 
You went,
With sudden, unintelligible phrase, 
And frighten'd eye, 
Upon your journey of so many days 
Without a single kiss, or a good-bye? 
I knew, indeed, that you were parting soon; 
And so we sate, within the low sun's rays, 
You whispering to me, for your voice was weak, 
Your harrowing praise. 
Well, it was well 
To hear you such things speak, 
And I could tell 
What made y...Read more of this...
by St. Vincent Millay, Edna


Dream Song 132: A Small Dream

...small dream of the Golden World,
now you trot off to bed. I'll turn the machine off,
you've danced & trickt us enough.
Unintelligible whines & imprecations, hurled
from the second floor, fail to impress your mother
and I am the only other

and I say go to bed! We'll meet tomorrow,
acres of threats dissolve into a smile,
you'll be the Little Baby
again, while I pursue my path of sorrow
& bodies, bodies, to be carried a mile
& dropt. Maybe

if frozen slush will represent the s...Read more of this...
by Berryman, John

Gertrude of Wyoming

...him first:
To speak he tries; but quivering, pale, and parch'd,
From lips, as by some powerless dream accursed
Emotions unintelligible burst;
And long his filmed eye is red and dim;
At length the pity-proffer'd cup his thirst
Had half assuaged, and nerved his shuddering limb
When Albert's hand he grasp'd;--but Albert knew not him--

"And hast thou then forgot," (he cried forlorn,
And eyed the group with half indignant air,)
"Oh! hast thou, Christian chief, forgot the morn
Whe...Read more of this...
by Campbell, Thomas

Hauntings

...ams,
Is haunted by strange doubts, evasive dreams,
Hints of a pre-Lethean life, of men,
Stars, rocks, and flesh, things unintelligible,
And light on waving grass, he knows not when,
And feet that ran, but where, he cannot tell....Read more of this...
by Brooke, Rupert

Javanese Dancers

...althy dancer comes 
Undulantly with cat-like steps that cling; 

Smiling between her painted lids a smile, 
Motionless, unintelligible, she twines 
Her fingers into mazy lines, 
The scarves across her fingers twine the while. 

One, two, three, four glide forth, and, to and fro, 
Delicately and imperceptibly, 
Now swaying gently in a row, 
Now interthreading slow and rhythmically, 

Still, with fixed eyes, monotonously still, 
Mysteriously, with smiles inanimate, 
With linger...Read more of this...
by Symons, Arthur


Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey

...sublime; that blessed mood,
In which the burthen of the mystery,
In which the heavy and the weary weight
Of all this unintelligible world,
Is lightened—that serene and blessed mood,
In which the affections gently lead us on—
Until, the breath of this corporeal frame
And even the motion of our human blood
Almost suspended, we are laid asleep
In body, and become a living soul;
While with an eye made quiet by the power
Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,
We see in...Read more of this...
by Wordsworth, William

Poetry

...unding interpretation can be put upon them but because
 they are
 useful. When they become so derivative as to become 
 unintelligible, 
 the same thing may be said for all of us, that we
 do not admire what
 we cannot understand: the bat
 holding on upside down or in quest of something to

eat, elephants pushing, a wild horse taking a roll, a tireless wolf
 under
 a tree, the immovable critic twitching his skin like a horse that
 feels a
 flea, the base-
 ball fan, the stati...Read more of this...
by Moore, Marianne

The Apparitions

...solitude,
Where I can sit up half the night
With some friend that has the wit
Not to allow his looks to tell
When I am unintelligible.
Fifteen apparitions have I seen;
The worst a coat upon a coat-hanger.

When a man grows old his joy
Grows more deep day after day,
His empty heart is full at length,
But he has need of all that strength
Because of the increasing Night
That opens her mystery and fright.
Fifteen apparitions have I seen;
The worst a coat upon a coat-hanger....Read more of this...
by Yeats, William Butler

The Arrival of the Bee Box

...
Black on black, angrily clambering. 

How can I let them out? 
It is the noise that appalls me most of all, 
The unintelligible syllables. 
It is like a Roman mob, 
Small, taken one by one, but my god, together! 

I lay my ear to furious Latin. 
I am not a Caesar. 
I have simply ordered a box of maniacs. 
They can be sent back. 
They can die, I need feed them nothing, I am the owner. 

I wonder how hungry they are. 
I wonder if they would forget me 
If I ju...Read more of this...
by Plath, Sylvia

The Shield of Achilles

...ade of grass, no sign of neighborhood,Nothing to eat and nowhere to sit down,Yet, congregated on its blankness, stoodAn unintelligible multitude,A million eyes, a million boots in line,Without expression, waiting for a sign. Out of the air a voice without a faceProved by statistics that some cause was justIn tones as dry and level as the place:No one was cheered and nothing was discussed;Column by column in a cloud of dustThey marched away enduring a beliefWhose logic brought...Read more of this...
by Auden, Wystan Hugh (W H)

The Three Voices

...explain
The jargon of the howling main, 

"Or, stretched beside some babbling brook,
To con, with inexpressive look,
An unintelligible book." 

Low spake the voice within his head,
In words imagined more than said,
Soundless as ghost's intended tread: 

"If thou art duller than before,
Why quittedst thou the voice of lore?
Why not endure, expecting more?" 

"Rather than that," he groaned aghast,
"I'd writhe in depths of cavern vast,
Some loathly vampire's rich repast." 

"'Tw...Read more of this...
by Carroll, Lewis

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