Get Your Premium Membership

Famous Unshod Poems by Famous Poets

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

See also:

Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry
...into;

Earth gives us thorns to tread,
And all her thorns are trod;
Through lands burnt black and red
We pass with feet unshod;
Whence we would be man shall not keep us, nor man's God.

Through the great desert beasts
Howl at our backs by night,
And thunder-forging priests
Blow their dead bale-fires bright,
And on their broken anvils beat out bolts for fight.

Inside their sacred smithies
Though hot the hammer rings,
Their steel links snap like withies,
Their chains like twis...Read more of this...
by Swinburne, Algernon Charles



...uld in the loveless land of Hades glean
One scorching harvest from those fields of flame
Where passion walks with naked unshod feet
And is not wounded, - ah! enough that once their lips could meet

In that wild throb when all existences
Seemed narrowed to one single ecstasy
Which dies through its own sweetness and the stress
Of too much pleasure, ere Persephone
Had bade them serve her by the ebon throne
Of the pale God who in the fields of Enna loosed her zone....Read more of this...
by Wilde, Oscar
..., like a cheerful traveller, take the road
Singing beside the hedge. What if the bread
Be bitter in thine inn, and thou unshod
To meet the flints ? At least it may be said
' Because the way is short, I thank thee, God. '...Read more of this...
by Browning, Elizabeth Barrett
...we that cannot hear or see
The sounds and lights of liberty,
The witness of the naked God
That treads on burning hours unshod
With instant feet unwounded; we
That can trace only where he trod
By fire in heaven or storm at sea,
Not know the very present whole
And naked nature of the soul;

We that see wars and woes and kings,
And portents of enormous things,
Empires, and agonies, and slaves,
And whole flame of town-swallowing graves;
That hear the harsh hours clap sharp wings...Read more of this...
by Swinburne, Algernon Charles
...And starve the darkened heart.
Then all goes wrong: the old foundations rock;
  One scorns at him of old who gazed unshod;
One striking with a pickaxe thinks the shock
      Shall move the seat of God.
A little way, a very little way
  (Life is so short), they dig into the rind,
And they are very sorry, so they say,—
      Sorry for what they find.
But truth is sacred—ay, and must be told:
  There is a story long beloved of man;
We must forego it, for it will no...Read more of this...
by Ingelow, Jean



...air,
Miss all the toil that hugs the sod.
'Tis they whose backs have felt the rod,
Whose feet have pressed the path unshod,
May smile upon defeated care,
Not they who soar.
High up there are no thorns to prod,
Nor boulders lurking 'neath the clod
To turn the keenness of the share,
For flight is ever free and rare;
But heroes they the soil who 've trod,
Not they who soar!
...Read more of this...
by Laurence Dunbar, Paul
...spered strange tales,
Human words it spoke not.
Told fair things to come,
And our marvellous lot
If now with fawn-steps
Unshod we advanced
To the midst of the grove
And in reverence danced.
We obeyed as he piped
Soft grass to young feet,
Was a medicine mighty,
A remedy meet.
Our thin blood awoke,
It grew dizzy and wild,
Though scarcely a word
Moved the lips of a child.
Our dance gave allegiance,
It set us apart,
We tripped a strange measure,
Uplifted of heart.


II

We though...Read more of this...
by Lindsay, Vachel
...of no terrene graff, 
And the lamp of no olive oil 
With heart's blood that alone may boil. 
With naked breast and feet unshod 
I follow the wizard way to God. 

Wherever he leads my foot shall follow; 
Over the height, into the hollow, 
Up to the caves of pure cold breath, 
Down to the deeps of foul hot death, 
Across the seas, through the fires, 
Past the palace of desires; 
Where he will, whether he will or no, 
If I go, I care not whither I go. 

For in me is the taint of...Read more of this...
by Crowley, Aleister
...gracious in defeat,
victorious in love, your breasts
and belly and below, the zone I'd
like to zone in on, your ankles
unshod, your brassiere and panties
strewn on the floor, you are
my Psyche (Greek for memory or soul)
and I will visit your sleep tonight
you won't see me but I'll be there
beside you for hours and when
you wake in my arms I will kiss
your eyes shut and then kiss you more...Read more of this...
by Lehman, David
...thout ears,
Who shall sing of him, dead in the birth?

The earth-god Freedom, the lonely
Face lightening, the footprint unshod,
Not as one man crucified only
Nor scourged with but one life's rod;
The soul that is substance of nations,
Reincarnate with fresh generations;
The great god Man, which is God.

But in weariest of years and obscurest
Doth it live not at heart of all things,
The one God and one spirit, a purest
Life, fed from unstanchable springs?
Within love, within h...Read more of this...
by Swinburne, Algernon Charles
...aring swift,
Neighs hungry for new fodder,
 And calls us to the drift:
Then down the cloven ridges --
 A million hooves unshod --
Break forth the mad White Horses
 To seek their meat from God!

Girth-deep in hissing water
 Our furious vanguard strains --
Through mist of mighty tramplings
 Roll up the fore-blown manes --
A hundred leagues to leeward,
 Ere yet the deep is stirred,
The groaning rollers carry
 The coming of the herd!

Whose hand may grip your nostrils --
 Your fo...Read more of this...
by Kipling, Rudyard

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Unshod poems.


Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry