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Famous Unloved Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry
...ill not suffice,
Unless we also have been wise
And have our loves enjoy’d.

What posture can we think him in
That, here unloved, again
Departs, and ’s thither gone
Where each sits by his own?
Or how can that Elysium be
Where I my mistress still must see
Circled in other’s arms?

For there the judges all are just,
And Sophonisba must
Be his whom she held dear,
Not his who loved her here.
The sweet Philoclea, since she died,
Lies by her Pirocles his side,
Not by Amphialus.

Som...Read more of this...
by Suckling, Sir John



...rned against me or the light, not one
said, I am sick, I am tired, I will go home,
not one complained or drifted alone,
unloved, on the hardest day of their lives.
Eleven years from now they will become
the men and women of Flint or Paradise,
the majors of a minor town, and I
will be gone into smoke or memory,
so I bow to them here and whisper
all I know, all I will never know....Read more of this...
by Levine, Philip
...o those who lost their nerve before.
Wiglaf made a speech, the son of Weohstan,
a man sorry-hearted, looking upon the unloved:
“Alas, one could say, who wishes to speak the sooth
that our lord, who gave you those treasures,
that war-tackle, that you stand there wearing,
when he often handed out helmet and byrnie
to his hall-sitters on the ale-benches,
a ruler to his retainers, the most powerful
he could find anywhere far or near—
one could say that he threw this war...Read more of this...
by Anonymous,
...m the youth for those that had yielded to fear!
Wiglaf spake, the son of Weohstan, --
mournful he looked on those men unloved: --
“Who sooth will speak, can say indeed
that the ruler who gave you golden rings
and the harness of war in which ye stand
-- for he at ale-bench often-times
bestowed on hall-folk helm and breastplate,
lord to liegemen, the likeliest gear
which near of far he could find to give, --
threw away and wasted these weeds of battle,
on men who fai...Read more of this...
by Anonymous,
...whose care it is
To guard her strong and stainless majesty
Upon the hill Athenian, - alas!
That they who loved so well unloved into Death's house should
pass.'

So with soft hands she laid the boy and girl
In the great golden waggon tenderly
(Her white throat whiter than a moony pearl
Just threaded with a blue vein's tapestry
Had not yet ceased to throb, and still her breast
Swayed like a wind-stirred lily in ambiguous unrest)

And then each pigeon spread its milky van,
The ...Read more of this...
by Wilde, Oscar



...st,
My life of solitude is past! 

But then to wake and find it flown,
The dream of happiness destroyed,
To find myself unloved, alone,
What tongue can speak the dreary void?

A heart whence warm affections flow,
Creator, thou hast given to me,
And am I only thus to know
How sweet the joys of love would be?...Read more of this...
by Bronte, Anne
...An agitation of the air,
A perturbation of the light
Admonished me the unloved year
Would turn on its hinge that night.

I stood in the disenchanted field
Amid the stubble and the stones
Amaded, while a small worm lisped to me
The song of my marrow-bones.

Blue poured into summer blue,
A hawk broke from his cloudless tower,
The roof of the silo blazed, and I knew
That part of my life was forever over.

Already the iron door of ...Read more of this...
by Kunitz, Stanley
...ly;
The still and cloudy night gave none; 
Erelong, with deep-drawn, trembling sigh, 
Her heavy plaint again begun. 

' Unloved­I love; unwept­I weep; 
Grief I restrain­hope I repress: 
Vain is this anguish­fixed and deep; 
Vainer, desires and dreams of bliss.

My love awakes no love again, 
My tears collect, and fall unfelt; 
My sorrow touches none with pain, 
My humble hopes to nothing melt.

For me the universe is dumb, 
Stone-deaf, and blank, and wholly blind; 
Life I mus...Read more of this...
by Bronte, Charlotte
...t suffice, 
Unless we also have been wise 
 And have our loves enjoy'd. 

What posture can we think him in 
 That, here unloved, again 
 Departs, and 's thither gone 
 Where each sits by his own? 
Or how can that Elysium be 
Where I my mistress still must see 
 Circled in other's arms? 

For there the judges all are just, 
 And Sophonisba must 
 Be his whom she held dear, 
 Not his who loved her here. 
The sweet Philoclea, since she died, 
Lies by her Pirocles his side, 
 Not...Read more of this...
by Milton, John
...moist and red.

If you go deep
Into the heart
What do you find?
Grief, grief,
Grief for the life unlived,
For the loves unloved,
For the child never to be born,
Th'unbidden anguish, when the fair moon
Rises over still summer seas, and the pain
Of sunlight scattered in vain on spring grass.

If you go deeper
Into the heart
What do you find there?
Death, death,
Death tht lets all go by,
Lets the blood flow from the wound,
Lets the night pass,
Endures the day with indifference, ...Read more of this...
by Raine, Kathleen
...re that comes in that shall not go again;
Love sells the proud heart's citadel to Fate.
They have known shame, who love unloved. Even then,
When two mouths, thirsty each for each, find slaking,
And agony's forgot, and hushed the crying
Of credulous hearts, in heaven -- such are but taking
Their own poor dreams within their arms, and lying
Each in his lonely night, each with a ghost.
Some share that night. But they know love grows colder,
Grows false and dull, that was sweet l...Read more of this...
by Brooke, Rupert
...ss,
Forgetful of forgetfulness,
Resting from care and pain and sorrow
Thro' the long night that knows no morrow;
Living unloved, to die unknown,
Unwept, untended, and alone....Read more of this...
by Rossetti, Christina
...nd cruel was the grief that played 
With the queen's spirit; and she said: 
'What do I here, reigning alone? 
For to be unloved is to be alone. 
There is no man in all my land 
Dare my longing understand; 
The whole folk like a peasant bows 
Lest its look should meet my brows 
And be harmed by this beauty of mine. 
I burn their brains as I were sign 
Of God's beautiful anger sent 
To master them with punishment 
Of beauty that must pour distress 
On hearts grown dark with ugl...Read more of this...
by Abercrombie, Lascelles
...is such a lot than weeping o’er a 
grave.

I’m sorry for the souls that come unwelcomed 
into birth, 
I’m sorry for the unloved old who cumber up the
earth.
I’m sorry for the suffering poor in life’s great
maelstrom hurled, 
In truth I’m sorry for them all who make this 
aching world.

But underneath whate’er seems sad and is not
understood, 
I know there lies hid from our sight a mighty
germ of good.
And this belief stands firm by me, my sermon, 
motto, text –
The sorriest t...Read more of this...
by Wilcox, Ella Wheeler
..., the venal Muses Arabian,
Unlike, indeed, the nobler divinities,
Greek Gods or old time-honoured muses,
Easily proffer unloved caresses.

Lost, lost, the man who mindeth the minstrelsy;
Since still, in sandy, glittering pleasances,
Cold, stony fruits, gem-like but quite in-
Edible, flatter and wholly starve him....Read more of this...
by Stevenson, Robert Louis
...ect
With motionless head erect.

That other's moonlit eyeballs never moved,
Being fixed on all things loved, all things unloved.
Yet little peace he had,
For those that love are sad.

Little did they care who danced between,
And little she by whom her dance was seen
So she had outdanced thought.
Body perfection brought,

For what but eye and ear silence the mind
With the minute particulars of mankind?
Mind moved yet seemed to stop
As 'twere a spinning-top.

In contemplation h...Read more of this...
by Yeats, William Butler
...knew by heart, from finish to start, the Book of Iniquity.

There is no hope for such as I on earth, nor yet in Heaven;
Unloved I live, unloved I die, unpitied, unforgiven;
A loathed jade, I ply my trade, unhallowed and unshriven.

I paint my cheeks, for they are white, and cheeks of chalk men hate;
Mine eyes with wine I make them shine, that man may seek and sate;
With overhead a lamp of red I sit me down and wait

Until they come, the nightly scum, with drunken eyes aflame;...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William
...sorrow for the ills thy life has known
As thro' the world's long pilgrimage, alone,
Haunted by Poverty and woe-begone,
Unloved, unfriended, thou didst journey on:
Thy youth in ignorance and labour past,
And thine old age all barrenness and blast!
Hard was thy Fate, which, while it doom'd to woe,
Denied thee wisdom to support the blow;
And robb'd of all its energy thy mind,
Ere yet it cast thee on thy fellow-kind,
Abject of thought, the victim of distress,
To wander in the wo...Read more of this...
by Southey, Robert
...d the dew was gone  
And noon lay heavy on flower and tree  
And the weary Day turn'd to his rest 
Lingering like an unloved guest 20 
I sigh'd for thee. 

Thy brother Death came and cried  
Wouldst thou me?  
Thy sweet child Sleep the filmy-eyed  
Murmur'd like a noontide bee 25 
Shall I nestle near thy side? 
Wouldst thou me? ¡ªAnd I replied  
No, not thee!  

Death will come when thou art dead  
Soon too soon; 30 
Sleep will come when thou art fled: 
Of ne...Read more of this...
by Shelley, Percy Bysshe
...heart does not beat underneath your fingers.



x x x

All has been taken: strength as well as love.
Into the unloved town the corpse is thrown.
It does not love the sun. I fear, that blood
Inside of me already cold has grown.

I do not recognize sweet Muse's loving taste:
She looks ahead and does not let a word pass,
And bows a head in the dark garland dressed
Onto my chest, exhausted from the haste.

And only conscience, scarier with each day,
Wants a gr...Read more of this...
by Akhmatova, Anna

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Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry