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Famous Unlike Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Brackenridge, Hugh Henry
...where not Rome's consuls brave, 
Heroes, or conquering armies, ever came. 
Far in the artic skies a light is seen, 
Unlike that sun, which shall ere long retreat, 
And leave their hills one half the year in shades. 
Or that Aurora which the sailor sees 
Beneath the pole in dancing beams of light, 
Playing its gambols on the northern hills. 
That light is vain and gives no genial heat, 
To warm the tenants of those frozen climes, 
Or give that heav'nly vigour to th...Read more of this...



by Brackenridge, Hugh Henry
...bring from woods and subteranean dens 
The skulking crew, before a Johnson rose, 
Pitying their num'rous tribes: ah how unlike 
The Cortez' and Acosta's, pride of Spain 
Whom blood and murder only satisfy'd. 
Behold their doleful regions overflow'd 
With gore, and blacken'd with ten thousand deaths 
From Mexico to Patagonia far, 
Where howling winds sweep round the southern cape, 
And other suns and other stars arise! 



ACASTO. 
Such is the curse Eugenio where the s...Read more of this...

by Browning, Robert
...
So give up hope accordingly to solve-- 


(To you, and over the wine). Our dogmas then 
With both of us, though in unlike degree, 
Missing full credence--overboard with them! 
I mean to meet you on your own premise: 
Good, there go mine in company with yours! 

And now what are we? unbelievers both, 
Calm and complete, determinately fixed 
To-day, to-morrow and for ever, pray? 
You'll guarantee me that? Not so, I think! 
In no wise! all we've gained is, that belief, 
As ...Read more of this...

by Milosz, Czeslaw
...g flattery called: a great talent.

We, the last who can still draw joy from cynicism.
We, whose cunning is not unlike despair.

A new, humorless generation is now arising
It takes in deadly earnest all we received with laughter.

5
Let your words speak not through their meanings
But through them against whom they are used.

Fashion your weapon from ambiguous words.
Consign clear words to lexical limbo.

Judge no words before the clerks have checke...Read more of this...

by Coleridge, Samuel Taylor
...xpress his love's excess
With words of unmeant bitterness.
Perhaps 'tis pretty to force together
Thoughts so all unlike each other;
To mutter and mock a broken charm,
To dally with wrong that does no harm.
Perhaps 'tis tender too and pretty
At each wild word to feel within
A sweet recoil of love and pity.
And what, if in a world of sin
(O sorrow and shame should this be true!)
Such giddiness of heart and brain
Comes seldom save from rage and pain,
So ...Read more of this...



by Wilcox, Ella Wheeler
...h; 
That mother who like goddesses of old, 
Gave to the mighty Mars, three warriors brave and bold, 

VI.

Yet who, unlike those martial dames of yore, 
Grew pale and shuddered at the sight of gore.
A fragile being, born to grace the hearth, 
Untroubled by the conflicts of the earth.
Some gentle dove who reared young eaglets, might, 
In watching those bold birdlings take their flight, 
Feel what that mother felt who saw her sons
Rush from her loving arms, to face ...Read more of this...

by Keats, John
...that of Memphian sphinx,
Pedestal'd haply in a palace court,
When sages look'd to Egypt for their lore.
But oh! how unlike marble was that face:
How beautiful, if sorrow had not made
Sorrow more beautiful than Beauty's self.
There was a listening fear in her regard,
As if calamity had but begun;
As if the vanward clouds of evil days
Had spent their malice, and the sullen rear
Was with its stored thunder labouring up.
One hand she press'd upon that aching spot
Wher...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...n sorrow mounts to mar
Their sacred everlasting calm! and such,
Not all so fine, nor so divine a calm
Not such, nor all unlike it, man may gain
Letting his own life go. The Gods, the Godsl
If all be atoms, how then should the Gods
Being atomic not be dissoluble,
Not follow the great law? My master held
That Gods there are, for all men so believe.
I prest my footsteps into his, and meant
Surely to lead my Memmius in a train
Of fiowery clauses onward to the proof
That G...Read more of this...

by Moore, Marianne
...ent,
this amalgamation which can never be more
than an interesting possibility,
describing it
as "that strange paradise
unlike flesh, gold, or stately buildings,
the choicest piece of my life:
the heart rising
in its estate of peace
as a boat rises
with the rising of the water;"
constrained in speaking of the serpent --
that shed snakeskin in the history of politeness
not to be returned to again --
that invaluable accident
exonerating Adam.
And he has beauty also;
it's di...Read more of this...

by Yeats, William Butler
...one,
A mist that is like blown snow is sweeping over all,
Valley, river, and elms, under the light of a moon
That seems unlike itself, that seems unchangeable,
A glittering sword out of the east. A puff of wind
And those white glimmering fragments of the mist sweep by.
Frenzies bewilder, reveries perturb the mind;
Monstrous familiar images swim to the mind's eye.

'Vengeance upon the murderers,' the cry goes up,
'Vengeance for Jacques Molay.' In cloud-pale rag...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...ir portion set, 
As far removed from God and light of Heaven 
As from the centre thrice to th' utmost pole. 
Oh how unlike the place from whence they fell! 
There the companions of his fall, o'erwhelmed 
With floods and whirlwinds of tempestuous fire, 
He soon discerns; and, weltering by his side, 
One next himself in power, and next in crime, 
Long after known in Palestine, and named 
Beelzebub. To whom th' Arch-Enemy, 
And thence in Heaven called Satan, with bold wo...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...skill they had, together sewed, 
To gird their waist; vain covering, if to hide 
Their guilt and dreaded shame! O, how unlike 
To that first naked glory! Such of late 
Columbus found the American, so girt 
With feathered cincture; naked else, and wild 
Among the trees on isles and woody shores. 
Thus fenced, and, as they thought, their shame in part 
Covered, but not at rest or ease of mind, 
They sat them down to weep; nor only tears 
Rained at their eyes, but high wind...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...to some perhaps:
And Love hath oft, well meaning, wrought much wo,
Yet always pity or pardon hath obtain'd.
Be not unlike all others, not austere
As thou art strong, inflexible as steel.
If thou in strength all mortals dost exceed,
In uncompassionate anger do not so.

Sam: How cunningly the sorceress displays
Her own transgressions, to upbraid me mine! 
That malice not repentance brought thee hither,
By this appears : I gave, thou say'st, th' example,
I led the w...Read more of this...

by Ashbery, John
...uild it flat like a section of wall:
It must join the segment of a circle,
Roving back to the body of which it seems
So unlikely a part, to fence in and shore up the face
On which the effort of this condition reads
Like a pinpoint of a smile, a spark
Or star one is not sure of having seen
As darkness resumes. A perverse light whose
Imperative of subtlety dooms in advance its
Conceit to light up: unimportant but meant.
Francesco, your hand is big enough
To wreck the sp...Read more of this...

by Gibran, Kahlil
...ay at dawn, leaving but dew in the fields, shall rise and gather into a cloud and then fall down in rain. 

And not unlike the mist have I been. 

In the stillness of the night I have walked in your streets, and my spirit has entered your houses, 

And your heart-beats were in my heart, and your breath was upon my face, and I knew you all. 

Ay, I knew your joy and your pain, and in your sleep your dreams were my dreams. 

And oftentimes I was among you a lake...Read more of this...

by Wordsworth, William
...ooked along the silent air,  Until it seemed to bring a joy to my despair.   Ah! how unlike those late terrific sleeps!  And groans, that rage of racking famine spoke:  The unburied dead that lay in festering heaps!  The breathing pestilence that rose like smoke!  The shriek that from the distant battle broke!  The mine's dire earthquake, and the pallid host  ...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...d they would win thee--teem, 
Only I find not there this Holy Grail, 
With miracles and marvels like to these, 
Not all unlike; which oftentime I read, 
Who read but on my breviary with ease, 
Till my head swims; and then go forth and pass 
Down to the little thorpe that lies so close, 
And almost plastered like a martin's nest 
To these old walls--and mingle with our folk; 
And knowing every honest face of theirs 
As well as ever shepherd knew his sheep, 
And every homely se...Read more of this...

by Scott, Sir Walter
...dvancing tides,
     That shake her frame with ceaseless beat,
     Yet cannot heave her from her seat;—
     O, how unlike her course at sea!
     Or his free step on hill and lea!—
     Soon as the Minstrel he could scan,—
     'What of thy lady?—of my clan?—
     My mother?—Douglas?—tell me all!
     Have they been ruined in my fall?
     Ah, yes! or wherefore art thou here?
     Yet speak,—speak boldly,—do not fear.'—
     For Allan, who his mood well knew,
  ...Read more of this...

by Coleridge, Mary Elizabeth
...I sat before my glass one day, 
And conjured up a vision bare, 
Unlike the aspects glad and gay, 
That erst were found reflected there - 
The vision of a woman, wild 
With more than womanly despair. 
Her hair stood back on either side 
A face bereft of loveliness. 
It had no envy now to hide 
What once no man on earth could guess. 
It formed the thorny aureole 
Of hard, unsanctified distress. 

Her lips w...Read more of this...

by Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...ing
Strange night upon some Indian isle,--thus were
"Phantoms diffused around, & some did fling
Shadows of shadows, yet unlike themselves,
Behind them, some like eaglets on the wing
"Were lost in the white blaze, others like elves
Danced in a thousand unimagined shapes
Upon the sunny streams & grassy shelves;
"And others sate chattering like restless apes
On vulgar paws and voluble like fire.
Some made a cradle of the ermined capes
"Of kingly mantles, some upon the tiar
O...Read more of this...

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