Famous Unsafe Poems by Famous Poets

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

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For my own Monument

...AS doctors give physic by way of prevention, 
 Mat, alive and in health, of his tombstone took care; 
For delays are unsafe, and his pious intention 
 May haply be never fulfill'd by his heir. 

Then take Mat's word for it, the sculptor is paid; 
 That the figure is fine, pray believe your own eye; 
Yet credit but lightly what more may be said, 
 For we flatter ourselves, and teach marble to lie. 

Yet counting as far as to fifty his years, 
 His virtues and vices were as ...Read more of this...
by Prior, Matthew


Hymn To The Penates

...her crowded paths
With FOLLY's rattle, to your HOUSEHOLD GODS
Return! for not in VICE's gay abodes,
Not in the unquiet unsafe halls of FAME
Does HAPPINESS abide! O ye who weep
Much for the many miseries of Mankind,
More for their vices, ye whose honest eyes
Frown on OPPRESSION,--ye whose honest hearts
Beat high when FREEDOM sounds her dread tocsin;--
O ye who quit the path of peaceful life
Crusading for mankind--a spaniel race
That lick the hand that beats them, or tear all
...Read more of this...
by Southey, Robert

Last Instructions to a Painter

...own for each, 
But wiser men and well foreseen in chance 
In Holland theirs had lodged before, and France. 
Whitehall's unsafe; the court all meditates 
To fly to Windsor and mure up the gates. 
Each does the other blame, and all distrust; 
(That Mordaunt, new obliged, would sure be just.) 
Not such a fatal stupefaction reigned 
At London's flame, nor so the court complained. 
The Bloodworth_Chancellor gives, then does recall 
Orders; amazed, at last gives none at all. 

St A...Read more of this...
by Marvell, Andrew

Marriage

...rtain footing of a spear,"
forgetting that there is in woman
a quality of mind
which is an instinctive manifestation
is unsafe,
he goes on speaking
in a formal, customary strain
of "past states," the present state,
seals, promises, 
the evil one suffered,
the good one enjoys,
hell, heaven,
everything convenient
to promote one's joy."
There is in him a state of mind
by force of which,
perceiving what it was not
intended that he should,
"he experiences a solemn joy
in seeing th...Read more of this...
by Moore, Marianne

MFingal - Canto III

...hts of romance invoked a mistress;
And brandishing the blade in air,
Struck terror through th' opposing war.
The Whigs, unsafe within the wind
Of such commotion, shrunk behind.
With whirling steel around address'd,
Fierce through their thickest throng he press'd,
(Who roll'd on either side in arch,
Like Red Sea waves in Israel's march)
And like a meteor rushing through,
Struck on their Pole a vengeful blow.
Around, the Whigs, of clubs and stones
Discharged whole vollies, in p...Read more of this...
by Trumbull, John


Paradise Lost: Book 06

...horrour: From each hand with speed retired, 
Where erst was thickest fight, the angelick throng, 
And left large field, unsafe within the wind 
Of such commotion; such as, to set forth 
Great things by small, if, nature's concord broke, 
Among the constellations war were sprung, 
Two planets, rushing from aspect malign 
Of fiercest opposition, in mid sky 
Should combat, and their jarring spheres confound. 
Together both with next to almighty arm 
Up-lifted imminent, one strok...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

The Medal

...ongingly he leans 
And rather would be great by wicked means. 
Thus framed for ill, he loosed our triple hold, 
(Advice unsafe, precipitous, and bold.) 
From hence those tears, that Ilium was our woe: 
Who helps a powerful friend forearms a foe. 
What wonder if the waves prevail so far, 
When he cut down the banks that made the bar? 
Seas follow but their nature to invade; 
But he by art our native strength betrayed. 
So Samson to his foe his force confest, 
And to be shorn l...Read more of this...
by Dryden, John

To E.T

...re for you than me,
But now for me than you--the other way.

How ever, though, for even me who knew
The foe thrust back unsafe beyond the Rhine,
If I was not speak of it to you
And see you pleased once more with words of mine?...Read more of this...
by Frost, Robert

Two Look at Two

...er up.
They must have halted soon in any case
With thoughts of a path back, how rough it was
With rock and washout, and unsafe in darkness;
When they were halted by a tumbled wall
With barbed-wire binding. They stood facing this,
Spending what onward impulse they still had
In One last look the way they must not go,
On up the failing path, where, if a stone
Or earthslide moved at night, it moved itself;
No footstep moved it. 'This is all,' they sighed,
Good-night to woods.' Bu...Read more of this...
by Frost, Robert

Upon Appleton House to My Lord Fairfax

...ails rain for Quails, for Manna Dew.

Unhappy Birds! what does it boot
To build below the Grasses Root;
When Lowness is unsafe as Hight,
And Chance o'retakes what scapeth spight?
And now your Orphan Parents Call
Sounds your untimely Funeral.
Death-Trumpets creak in such a Note,
And 'tis the Sourdine in their Throat.

Or sooner hatch or higher build:
The Mower now commands the Field;
In whose new Traverse seemeth wrought
A Camp of Battail newly fought:
Where, as the Meads with...Read more of this...
by Marvell, Andrew

Upon Nothing

...hen they have racked the politician's breast,
Within thy bosom most securely rest,
And, when reduced to thee, are least unsafe and best.
But Nothing, why does Something still permit
That sacred monarchs should at council sit
With persons highly thought at best for nothing fit?
Whist weighty Something modestly abstains
From princes' coffers, and from statesmen's brains,
And Nothing there like stately Nothing reigns,
Nothing, who dwellest with fools in grave disguise,
For whom ...Read more of this...
by Wilmot, John

Was There A Time

...ere was a time they could cry over books,
But time has set its maggot on their track.
Under the arc of the sky they are unsafe.
What's never known is safest in this life.
Under the skysigns they who have no arms
Have cleanest hands, and, as the heartless ghost
Alone's unhurt, so the blind man sees best....Read more of this...
by Thomas, Dylan

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