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Famous Unruly Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Stevenson, Robert Louis
...'s eyes.
Singers should sing with such a goodly cheer
That the bare listening should make strong like wine,
At this unruly time of year,
The Feast of Valentine.

We do not now parade our "oughts"
And "shoulds" and motives and beliefs in God.
Their life lies all indoors; sad thoughts
Must keep the house, while gay thoughts go abroad,
Within we hold the wake for hopes deceased;
But in the public streets, in wind or sun,
Keep open, at the annual feast,
The puppet-boo...Read more of this...



by Stevenson, Robert Louis
...y fortunes poor but glad.
With all I had I have redeemed myself,
And escaped at once from slavery and pelf.
The unruly wishes must a ruler take,
Our high desires do our low fortunes make:
Those only who desire palatial things
Do bear the fetters and the frowns of Kings;
Set free thy slave; thou settest free thyself....Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...sorts of
wild
beasts, but otherwise like men and women, their apparel
glistering.
They come in making a riotous and unruly noise, with torches in
their hands.


 COMUS. The star that bids the shepherd fold
Now the top of heaven doth hold;
And the gilded car of day
His glowing axle doth allay
In the steep Atlantic stream;
And the slope sun his upward beam
Shoots against the dusky pole,
Pacing toward the other goal
Of his chamber in the east.
Meanwhile, welcome ...Read more of this...

by Field, Eugene
...oon!

In all neurotic ailments
I hear that he excels,
And he insures
Immediate cures
Of weird, uncanny spells;
The most unruly patient
Gets docile as a lamb
And is freed from ill by the potent skill
Of Hoodoo-Doctor Sam;
Feathers of strangled chickens,
Moss from the dank lagoon,
And plasters wet
With spider sweat
In the light of a midnight moon!

They say when nights are grewsome
And hours are, oh! so late,
Old Sam steals out
And hunts about
For charms that hoodoos hate!
That...Read more of this...

by Xavier, Emanuel
...n Day parade 
lost in their machismo, 
marijuana and Mira mami’s
‘cause boricuas do it better


Tito’s rambunctious and unruly rhythms never touched them 
never inspired them to rise above the ghetto 
and, like La Bruja said, “Ghet Over It!”
his timbales never echoed 
in the salsa of their souls
though they had probably danced 
to his cha-cha-cha
they never listened to the message 
between the beats
urging them to follow their hearts

On a train back to Brooklyn
feeling dispo...Read more of this...



by Lowell, Amy
...
and patience,
and then patience and backgammon, and stake gold napoleons on each 
game won.
Sport truly! It is an unruly spirit which could ask better. With 
her jewels,
her laces, her shawls; her two hundred and twenty dresses, her fichus,
her veils; her pictures, her busts, her birds. It is 
absurd that she
cannot be happy. The Emperor smarts under the thought 
of her ingratitude.
What could he do more? And yet she spends, spends as 
never before.
...Read more of this...

by Whitman, Walt
...t for my city, 
Whereupon, lo! upsprang the aboriginal name! 

Now I see what there is in a name, a word, liquid, sane, unruly, musical, self-sufficient;

I see that the word of my city is that word up there, 
Because I see that word nested in nests of water-bays, superb, with tall and wonderful
 spires,
Rich, hemm’d thick all around with sailships and steamships—an island sixteen
 miles
 long, solid-founded, 
Numberless crowded streets—high growths of iron, slender, strong, ...Read more of this...

by Dyke, Henry Van
...ss the crowded market-place of life,
Thy measured foot-fall, ringing light and clear
Above the unmeaning noises and the unruly strife;
In quiet cadence, sweet and slow,
Serenely pacing to and fro,
Thy far-off steps are magical and dear.
Ah, turn this way, come close and speak to me!
>From this dull bed of languor set my spirit free,
And bid me rise, and let me walk awhile with thee


III

Where wilt thou lead me first?
In what still region
Of thy domain,
Whose provinces a...Read more of this...

by Thomas, Dylan
...rning turn and twist.

And these poor nerves so wired to the skull
Ache on the lovelorn paper
I hug to love with my unruly scrawl
That utters all love hunger
And tells the page the empty ill.

My hero bares my side and sees his heart
Tread; like a naked Venus,
The beach of flesh, and wind her bloodred plait;
Stripping my loin of promise,
He promises a secret heat.

He holds the wire from this box of nerves
Praising the mortal error
Of birth and death, the two sad ...Read more of this...

by Ransom, John Crowe
...his paternosters duly 
And scourged his limbs, and afterwards would have slept; 
But with much riddling his head became unruly, 
He arose, from the quiet monastery he crept. 

Dawn lightened the place where the battle had been won. 
The people were dead -- it is easy he thought to die -- 
These dead remained, but the living were all gone, 
Gone with the wailing trumps of victory. 

The dead men wore no raiment against the air, 
Bartholomew's men had spoiled them w...Read more of this...

by Lowell, Amy
...and no doubt she meant it truly,
That he was sun, and grass, and wind, and sky
To her. And even if conscience were unruly
She salved it by neat sophistries, but why
Suppose her insincere, it was no lie
She said, for Heinrich was as much forgot
As though he'd never been within earshot.
But Theodore's hands in straying and caressing
Fumbled against the locket where it lay
Upon her neck. "What is this thing I'm pressing?"
He asked. "Let's bring it to the light o...Read more of this...

by Finch, Anne Kingsmill
...for Acorns are so madly bent, 
That soon this Tree must fall, for their Content. 
I wou'd have fetch'd some for th' unruly Elves; 
But 'tis the Mob's delight to help Themselves: 
Whilst your high Brood must with the meanest drop, 
And steeper be their Fall, as next the Top; 
Unless you soon to Jupiter repair, 
And let him know, the Case demands his Care. 

Oh! May the Trunk but stand, 'till you come back! 
But hark! already sure, I hear it crack. 
Away, away---The...Read more of this...

by Chaucer, Geoffrey
...now pig's-eye)."

13. Oseney: A once well-known abbey near Oxford.

14. Trave: travis; a frame in which unruly horses were shod.

15. Harow and Alas: Haro! was an old Norman cry for redress
or aid. The "Clameur de Haro" was lately raised, under peculiar
circumstances, as the prelude to a legal protest, in Jersey.

16. His shoes were ornamented like the windows of St. Paul's,
especially like the old rose-window.

17. Rise: Twig, ...Read more of this...

by Killigrew, Anne
...e Reins have broke
Of Reason, and refuse to bear its Yoke. 
But hurry thee, uncurb'd, from place to place, 
A wild, unruly, and an Uncouth Chace. 
Now cursed Gold does lead the Man astray, 
False flatt'ring Honours do anon betray, 
Then Beauty does as dang'rously delude, 
Beauty, that vanishes, while 'tis pursu'd, 
That, while we do behold it, fades away, 
And even a Long Encomium will not stay. 

 Each one of these can the Whole Man employ, 
Nor knows he anger, s...Read more of this...

by Hardy, Thomas
...distortions, 
Let nevermore things good and lovely 
 To me appertain; 

"For Reason is rank in my temples, 
 And Vision unruly, 
And chivalrous laud of my cunning 
 Is heard not again!"...Read more of this...

by Donne, John
...Busy old fool, unruly sun,
Why dost thou thus,
Through windows and through curtains, call on us?
Must to thy motions lovers' seasons run?
Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide
Late schoolboys and sour 'prentices,
Go tell court-huntsmen that the King will ride,
Call country ants to harvest offices;
Love, all alike, no season knows, nor clime,
Nor hours, days, months, which are th...Read more of this...

by Robinson, Mary Darby
...y menanc'd with gestures, and frown'd with disdain,
And declar'd, that the nobles were fitter to reign
Than a Prince so unruly as He.
But the Monarch cried, sternly, they taunted him so,
"From this moment the counsel of fools I forego--
"And on Wisdom and Virtue will honors bestow
"For such, ONLY, are welcome to Me!"

So saying, he quitted the Banquetting Hall,
And leaving his Courtiers and flatterers all--
Straightway for his Confessor loudly 'gan call
"O ! Father ! now ...Read more of this...

by Pushkin, Alexander
...le, to my ear 
For long your tender voice kept sounding, 
For long in dreams came features dear. 

Time passed. Unruly storms confounded 
Old dreams, and I from year to year 
Forgot how tender you had sounded, 
Your heavenly features once so dear. 

My backwoods days dragged slow and quiet -- 
Dull fence around, dark vault above -- 
Devoid of God and uninspired, 
Devoid of tears, of fire, of love. 

Sleep from my soul began retreating, 
And here you once again...Read more of this...

by Pushkin, Alexander
...ustle, to my ear
For long your tender voice kept sounding,
For long in dreams came features dear.

Time passed. Unruly storms confounded
Old dreams, and I from year to year
Forgot how tender you had sounded,
Your heavenly features once so dear.

My backwoods days dragged slow and quiet --
Dull fence around, dark vault above --
Devoid of God and uninspired,
Devoid of tears, of fire, of love.

Sleep from my soul began retreating,
And here you once again appear
B...Read more of this...

by Raleigh, Sir Walter
...Your dog is not a dog of grace; 
He does not wag the tail or beg;
He bit Miss Dickson in the face;
He bit a Bailie in the leg.

What tragic choices such a dog
Presents to visitor or friend!
Outside there is the Glasgow fog;
Within, a hydrophobic end.

Yet some relief even terror brings,
For when our life is cold and gray
We waste our strength on li...Read more of this...

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