Famous Untended Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Invocation To The Muses

by Edna St. Vincent Millay
 Read by the poet at The Public Ceremonial of The Naional Institute 
of Arts and Letters at Carnegie Hall, New York, January 18th, 1941.

Great Muse, that from this hall absent for long
Hast never been, 
Great Muse of Song,
Colossal Muse of mighty Melody,
Vocal Calliope,
With thine august and contrapuntal brow
And thy vast throat builded for Harmony,
For the strict monumental pure design,
And...Read more of this...

A Red Flower

by Claude McKay
 Your lips are like a southern lily red, 
Wet with the soft rain-kisses of the night, 
In which the brown bee buries deep its head, 
When still the dawn's a silver sea of light. 

Your lips betray the secret of your soul, 
The dark delicious essence that is you, 
A mystery of life, the flaming goal 
I seek through...Read more of this...

Corn

by Sidney Lanier
 To-day the woods are trembling through and through
With shimmering forms, that flash before my view,
Then melt in green as dawn-stars melt in blue.
The leaves that wave against my cheek caress
Like women's hands; the embracing boughs express
A subtlety of mighty tenderness;
The copse-depths into little noises start,
That sound anon like beatings of a heart,
Anon like talk 'twixt lips not far apart.
The...Read more of this...

Epitaph For A Romantic Woman

by Louise Bogan
 She has attained the permanence 
She dreamed of, where old stones lie sunning. 
Untended stalks blow over her 
Even and swift, like young men running. 

Always in the heart she loved 
Others had lived, -- she heard their laughter. 
She lies where none has lain before, 
Where certainly none will follow after....Read more of this...

Pibroch of Donail Dhu

by Sir Walter Scott
 Pibroch of Donuil Dhu,
Pibroch of Donuil,
Wake thy wild voice anew,
Summon Clan-Conuil.
Come away, come away,
Hark to the summons!
Come in your war array,
Gentles and commons.

Come from deep glen and
From mountain so rocky,
The war-pipe and pennon
Are at Inverlochy.
Come every hill-plaid and
True heart that wears one,
Come every steel blade and
Strong hand that bears one.

Leave untended the herd,
The flock without shelter;
Leave the corpse uninterr'd,
The...Read more of this...

A Sight in Camp

by Walt Whitman
 A SIGHT in camp in the day-break grey and dim, 
As from my tent I emerge so early, sleepless, 
As slow I walk in the cool fresh air, the path near by the hospital tent, 
Three forms I see on stretchers lying, brought out there, untended lying, 
Over each the blanket spread, ample brownish woollen blanket,
Grey and heavy blanket,...Read more of this...

Sappho

by Christina Rossetti
 I sigh at day-dawn, and I sigh
When the dull day is passing by.
I sigh at evening, and again
I sigh when night brings sleep to men.
Oh! it were far better to die
Than thus forever mourn and sigh,
And in death's dreamless sleep to be
Unconscious that none weep for me;
Eased from my weight of heaviness,
Forgetful of forgetfulness,
Resting from care and pain and...Read more of this...

Lincoln

by John Gould Fletcher
 I 

Like a gaunt, scraggly pine 
Which lifts its head above the mournful sandhills; 
And patiently, through dull years of bitter silence, 
Untended and uncared for, starts to grow. 

Ungainly, labouring, huge, 
The wind of the north has twisted and gnarled its branches; 
Yet in the heat of midsummer days, when thunderclouds ring the horizon, 
A nation of men...Read more of this...

Gathering Song of Donald the Black

by Sir Walter Scott
 Pibroch of Donuil Dhu 
Pibroch of Donuil 
Wake thy wild voice anew, 
Summon Clan Conuil! 
Come away, come away, 
Hark to the summons! 
Come in your war-array, 
Gentles and commons. 

Come from deep glen, and 
From mountain so rocky; 
The war-pipe and pennon 
Are at Inverlocky. 
Come every hill-plaid, and 
True heart that wears one, 
Come every steel blade,...Read more of this...

The Remonstrance

by Walter de la Mare
 I was at peace until you came 
And set a careless mind aflame; 
I lived in quiet; cold, content; 
All longing in safe banishment, 
Until your ghostly lips and eyes 
Made wisdom unwise. 

Naught was in me to tempt your feet 
To seek a lodging. Quite forgot 
Lay the sweet solitude we two 
In childhood used to wander through;...Read more of this...

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