Famous Unsettled Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A Bad Half Hour

...couldn't help but tell her
    She was "all the world to me."

  But her folks said I was "shif'less,"
    "Wild," "unsettled,"--they was right,
  For I leaned to punchin' cattle
    And I'm at it still tonight.
  And she married young Doc Wilkins--
    Oh my Lord! but that was hard!
  Wish that fool would quit his singin'
    "Annie Laurie" out on guard!

  Oh, I just kaint stand it thinkin'
    Of the things that happened then.
  Good old times, and all apast ...Read more of this...
by Clark, Badger


Cambridge Spring 1937

...At last the air fragrant, the bird's bubbling whistle
Succinct in the unknown unsettled trees:
O little Charles, beside the Georgian colleges
And milltown New England; at last the wind soft,
The sky unmoving, and the dead look
Of factory windows separate, at last,
From windows gray and wet:
 for now the sunlight
Thrashes its wet shellac on brickwalk and gutter,
White splinters streak midmorning and doorstep,
Winter passes as the light...Read more of this...
by Schwartz, Delmore

Christabel

...wandering mother! Peak and pine!
I have power to bid thee flee.'
Alas! what ails poor Geraldine?
Why stares she with unsettled eye?
Can she the bodiless dead espy?
And why with hollow voice cries she,
'Off, woman, off! this hour is mine-
Though thou her guardian spirit be,
Off, woman. off! 't is given to me.'

Then Christabel knelt by the lady's side,
And raised to heaven her eyes so blue-
'Alas!' said she, 'this ghastly ride-
Dear lady! it hath wildered you!'
T...Read more of this...
by Coleridge, Samuel Taylor

in search of milk and paradise

...e pavement spew
i wheel my young son matthew
through the heeley streets
shop to shop this early
morning (short of milk)
unsettled day - the sun
comes through the clouds in
ragged strips where windy
rain has had the night
to puff and piddle

puddles idle in
the dips of surfaces
neglected for decades

another place where caring's
lost a public vision
only detritus of hope
dares poke its battered 
visage out of doors

no pride here on pavements
what's local's long been
squashed ...Read more of this...
by Gregory, Rg

Paradise Regained: The Fourth Book

...ng brings not
A spirit and judgment equal or superior,
(And what he brings what needs he elsewhere seek?)
Uncertain and unsettled still remains,
Deep-versed in books and shallow in himself,
Crude or intoxicate, collecting toys
And trifles for choice matters, worth a sponge,
As children gathering pebbles on the shore. 
Or, if I would delight my private hours
With music or with poem, where so soon
As in our native language can I find
That solace? All our Law and Story strewed
W...Read more of this...
by Milton, John


Pioneers

...e and plain, 
We drink to you in silence now as Christmas comes again, 
The men who fought the wilderness through rough unsettled years – 
The founders of our nation’s life, the brave old pioneers....Read more of this...
by Paterson, Andrew Barton

Preface to Hunting of the Snark

...instance, take the two words ``fuming'' and ``furious''. Make up 
your mind that you will say both words, but leave it unsettled which 
you will say first. Now open your mouth and speak. If your thoughts 
incline ever so little towards ``fuming'', you will say 
``fuming-furious''; if they turn, by even a hair's breadth, towards 
``furious'', you will say ``furious-fuming''; but if you have that 
rarest of gifts, a perfectly balanced mind, you will say 
``frumious''. 

Suppos...Read more of this...
by Carroll, Lewis

Summer Fever

...The unsettled trees seem to share

My tensions of body and mind:

Unable to move before the shell of the wind,

Yielding as much as their nature allows,

They will break if pushed too far,

Splinter to show the white flesh of their wood

And sweet transparencies of sap.



If 1 am pushed too far I will show

The world our wounds, our nine months’ child

In his r...Read more of this...
by Tebb, Barry

The Fear

...----"
"Yes, I'm sure!"
"--it was a face?"
"Joel, I'll have to look. I can't go in,
I can't, and leave a thing like that unsettled.
Doors locked and curtains drawn will make no difference.
I always have felt strange when we came home
To the dark house after so long an absence,
And the key rattled loudly into place
Seemed to warn someone to be getting out
At one door as we entered at another.
What if I'm right, and someone all the time--
Don't hold my arm!"
"I say it's someone ...Read more of this...
by Frost, Robert

The Hunting Of The Snark

...

For instance, take the two words "fuming" and "furious." Make up your mind that you will say both words, but leave it unsettled which you will say first. Now open your mouth and speak. If your thoughts incline ever so little towards "fuming," you will say "fuming-furious;" if they turn, by even a hair's breadth, towards "furious," you will say "furious-fuming;" but if you have that rarest of gifts, a perfectly balanced mind, you will say "frumious." 

Supposing that, when P...Read more of this...
by Carroll, Lewis

The peter-bird

...aith by the farmer,
Scouted at magic and charms, hooted at Jonahs and hoodoos--
Thinking and reading of books must have unsettled his reason!
"There ain't no witches," he cried; "it isn't smoky, but foggy!
I will go out in the wet--you all can't hender me, nuther!"

Surely enough he went out into the damp of the morning,
Into the smudge that the witch spread over woodland and meadow,
Into the fleecy gray pall brooding on hillside and valley.
Laughing and scoffing, he strode i...Read more of this...
by Field, Eugene

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