Famous Untried Poems by Famous Poets

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

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25. My Father was a Farmer: A Ballad

...opt my schemes, like idle dreams, and came to this conclusion, O;
The past was bad, and the future hid, its good or ill untried, O;
But the present hour was in my pow’r, and so I would enjoy it, O.


No help, nor hope, nor view had I, nor person to befriend me, O;
So I must toil, and sweat, and moil, and labour to sustain me, O;
To plough and sow, to reap and mow, my father bred me early, O;
For one, he said, to labour bred, was a match for Fortune fairly, O.


Thus all obscu...Read more of this...
by Burns, Robert


A Word for the Hour

...What fear we? Safe on freedom's vantage ground
Our feet are planted; let us there remain
In unrevengeful calm, no means untried
Which truth can sanction, no just claim denied,
The sad spectators of a suicide!
They break the lines of Union: shall we light
The fires of hell to weld anew the chain
On that red anvil where each blow is pain?
Draw we not even now a freer breath,
As from our shoulders falls a load of death
Loathsome as that the Tuscan's victim bore
When keen with li...Read more of this...
by Whittier, John Greenleaf

Adieu to a Soldier

...fulfill’d—but I, more warlike, 
Myself, and this contentious soul of mine,
Still on our own campaigning bound, 
Through untried roads, with ambushes, opponents lined, 
Through many a sharp defeat and many a crisis—often baffled, 
Here marching, ever marching on, a war fight out—aye here, 
To fiercer, weightier battles give expression....Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

Anticipation

...
Equals in fortune and in years,
Have seen their morning melt in tears,
To clouded, smileless day;
Blest, had they died untried and young,
Before their hearts went wandering wrong,
Poor slaves, subdued by passions strong,
A weak and helpless prey! 

" Because, I hoped while they enjoyed,
And, by fulfilment, hope destroyed;
As children hope, with trustful breast,
I waited bliss - and cherished rest.
A thoughtful spirit taught me, soon,
That we must long till life be done;
That...Read more of this...
by Brontë, Emily

Bride of Abydos The

...scoff'd, 
As if my weak unwilling hand 
Refused the bridle or the brand: 
He ever went to war alone, 
And pent me here untried — unknown; 
To Haroun's care with women left, 
By hope unblest, of fame bereft. 
While thou — whose softness long endear'd, 
Though it unmann'd me, still had cheer'd — 
To Brusa's walls for safety sent, 
Awaited'st there the field's event. 
Haroun, who saw my spirit pining 
Beneath inaction's sluggish yoke, 
His captive, though with dread, resigning,...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)


Cassandra

...ause a few complacent years 
Have made your peril of your pride, 
Think you that you are to go on 
Forever pampered and untried? 

"What lost eclipse of history, 
What bivouac of the marching stars, 
Has given the sign for you to see 
Milleniums and last great wars? 

"What unrecorded overthrow 
Of all the world has ever known, 
Or ever been, has made itself 
So plain to you, and you alone? 

"Your Dollar, Dove, and Eagle make 
A Trinity that even you 
Rate higher than you ra...Read more of this...
by Robinson, Edwin Arlington

Custer

...
And courage is the secret source of power.
As Custer's column wheels upon their sight
The frightened red men yield the untried field by flight.


XXXII.
Yet when these conquering heroes sink to rest, 
Dissatisfaction gnaws the leader's breast, 
For far away across vast seas of snows
Held prisoners still by hostile Arapahoes
And Cheyennes unsubdued, two captives wait.
On God and Custer hangs their future fate.
May the Great Spirit nerve the mortal's arm
To rescue suffering so...Read more of this...
by Wilcox, Ella Wheeler

Dedication

...upon their bond.)

So thank I God my birth
 Fell not in isles aside --
Waste headlands of the earth,
 Or warring tribes untried --
But that she lent me worth
 And gave me right to pride.

Surely in toil or fray
 Under an alien sky,
Comfort it is to say:
 "Of no mean city am I!"

(Neither by service nor fee
 Come I to mine estate --
Mother of Cities to me,
 For I was born in her gate,
Between the palms and the sea,
 Where the world-end steamers wait.)

Now for this debt I owe,...Read more of this...
by Kipling, Rudyard

Dedication

...upon their bond.)

So thank I God my birth
 Fell not in isles aside --
Waste headlands of the earth,
 Or warring tribes untried --
But that she lent me worth
 And gave me right to pride.

Surely in toil or fray
 Under an alien sky,
Comfort it is to say:
 "Of no mean city am I!"

(Neither by service nor fee
 Come I to mine estate --
Mother of Cities to me,
 For I was born in her gate,
Between the palms and the sea,
 Where the world-end steamers wait.)

Now for this debt I owe,...Read more of this...
by Kipling, Rudyard

How In All Wonder..

...r,
E'e'n if he knew of there being another side;
But to suppose he should come any whither,
Sailing right on into chaos untried,
Across the whole ocean,
In spite of the motion,
To stick to the notion
That in some nook or bend
Of a sea without end
He should find North and South Amerikee,
Was a pure madness as it seems to me.

What if wise men had, as far back as Ptolemy,
Judged that the earth like an orange was round,
None of them ever said, 'Come along, follow,
Sail to the We...Read more of this...
by Clough, Arthur Hugh

In Three Days

...her says,
``Three days and one short night beside
``May throw no shadow on your ways;
``But years must teem with change untried,
``With chance not easily defied,
``With an end somewhere undescried.''
No fear!---or if a fear be born
This minute, it dies out in scorn.
Fear? I shall see her in three days
And one night, now the nights are short,
Then just two hours, and that is morn....Read more of this...
by Browning, Robert

Isaac and Archibald

...che that you 
Have not yet lived enough to know about.
But even unto you, and your boy’s faith, 
Your freedom, and your untried confidence, 
A time will come to find out what it means 
To know that you are losing what was yours, 
To know that you are being left behind;
And then the long contempt of innocence—
God bless you, boy!—don’t think the worse of it 
Because an old man chatters in the shade— 
Will all be like a story you have read 
In childhood and remembered for the p...Read more of this...
by Robinson, Edwin Arlington

Monadnoc

...ect courses keep,
Like wise preceptor lure his eye
To sound the science of the sky,
And carry learning to its height
Of untried power and sane delight;
The Indian cheer, the frosty skies
Breed purer wits, inventive eyes,
Eyes that frame cities where none be,
And hands that stablish what these see:
And, by the moral of his place,
Hint summits of heroic grace;
Man in these crags a fastness find
To fight pollution of the mind;
In the wide thaw and ooze of wrong,
Adhere like this...Read more of this...
by Emerson, Ralph Waldo

Paradise Lost: Book 04

...hoves 
From hard assays and ill successes past 
A faithful leader, not to hazard all 
Through ways of danger by himself untried: 
I, therefore, I alone first undertook 
To wing the desolate abyss, and spy 
This new created world, whereof in Hell 
Fame is not silent, here in hope to find 
Better abode, and my afflicted Powers 
To settle here on earth, or in mid air; 
Though for possession put to try once more 
What thou and thy gay legions dare against; 
Whose easier business ...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Paradise Lost: Book 09

...deprived 
Thy presence; agony of love till now 
Not felt, nor shall be twice; for never more 
Mean I to try, what rash untried I sought, 
The pain of absence from thy sight. But strange 
Hath been the cause, and wonderful to hear: 
This tree is not, as we are told, a tree 
Of danger tasted, nor to evil unknown 
Opening the way, but of divine effect 
To open eyes, and make them Gods who taste; 
And hath been tasted such: The serpent wise, 
Or not restrained as we, or not obey...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Paradise Regained: The First Book

...
But to vanquish by wisdom hellish wiles!
The Father knows the Son; therefore secure
Ventures his filial virtue, though untried,
Against whate'er may tempt, whate'er seduce,
Allure, or terrify, or undermine.
Be frustrate, all ye stratagems of Hell, 
And, devilish machinations, come to nought!"
 So they in Heaven their odes and vigils tuned.
Meanwhile the Son of God, who yet some days
Lodged in Bethabara, where John baptized,
Musing and much revolving in his breast
How best th...Read more of this...
by Milton, John

Song of the Exposition

...Gothic European Cathedrals, and German, French and Spanish
 Castles; 
For know a better, fresher, busier sphere—a wide, untried domain awaits, demands you. 

3
Responsive to our summons, 
Or rather to her long-nurs’d inclination,
Join’d with an irresistible, natural gravitation, 

She comes! this famous Female—as was indeed to be expected; 
(For who, so-ever youthful, ’cute and handsome, would wish to stay in mansions such as
 those,

When offer’d quarters with all the modern...Read more of this...
by Whitman, Walt

The Bride of Abydos

...scoff'd, 
As if my weak unwilling hand 
Refused the bridle or the brand: 
He ever went to war alone, 
And pent me here untried — unknown; 
To Haroun's care with women left, 
By hope unblest, of fame bereft. 
While thou — whose softness long endear'd, 
Though it unmann'd me, still had cheer'd — 
To Brusa's walls for safety sent, 
Awaited'st there the field's event. 
Haroun, who saw my spirit pining 
Beneath inaction's sluggish yoke, 
His captive, though with dread, resigning,...Read more of this...
by Byron, George (Lord)

The Eternal Goodness

...rvel or surprise,
Assured alone that life and death
His mercy underlies.

And if my heart and flesh are weak
To bear an untried pain,
The bruised reed He will not break,
But strengthen and sustain.

No offering of my own I have,
Nor works my faith to prove;
I can but give the gifts He gave,
And plead His love for love.

And so beside the Silent Sea
I wait the muffled oar;
No harm from Him can come to me
On ocean or on shore.

I know not where His islands lift
Their fronded pa...Read more of this...
by Whittier, John Greenleaf

With French to Kimberley

...Lancers rode that New South Wales had sent: 
With easy stride across the plain their long, lean Walers went. 
Unknown, untried, those squadrons were, but proudly out they drew 
Beside the English regiments that fought at Waterloo. 
From every coast, from every clime, they met in proud array 
To go with French to Kimberley to drive the Boers away. 

He crossed the Reit and fought his way towards the Modder bank. 
The foemen closed behind his march, and hung upon the flank. 
T...Read more of this...
by Paterson, Andrew Barton

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