Famous Unwholesome Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A Tale of Two Cities

by Rudyard Kipling
 Where the sober-colored cultivator smiles
 On his byles;
Where the cholera, the cyclone, and the crow
 Come and go;
Where the merchant deals in indigo and tea,
 Hides and ghi;
Where the Babu drops inflammatory hints
 In his prints;
Stands a City -- Charnock chose it -- packed away
 Near a Bay --
By the Sewage rendered fetid, by the sewer
 Made impure,
By the...Read more of this...

The Palace of Humbug

by Lewis Carroll
 Lays of Mystery,
Imagination, and Humor 

Number 1 

I dreamt I dwelt in marble halls,
And each damp thing that creeps and crawls
Went wobble-wobble on the walls. 

Faint odours of departed cheese,
Blown on the dank, unwholesome breeze,
Awoke the never ending sneeze. 

Strange pictures decked the arras drear,
Strange characters of woe and fear,
The humbugs of the social sphere. 

One showed a vain...Read more of this...

Four Quartets 1: Burnt Norton

by T S (Thomas Stearns) Eliot
 I

Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.
What might have been is an abstraction
Remaining a perpetual possibility
Only in a world of speculation.
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.
Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage...Read more of this...

Giving chapter V

by Kahlil Gibran
 Then said a rich man, "Speak to us of Giving." 

And he answered: 

You give but little when you give of your possessions. 

It is when you give of yourself that you truly give. 

For what are your possessions but things you keep and guard for fear you may need them tomorrow? 

And tomorrow, what shall tomorrow bring to...Read more of this...

When Like A Running Grave

by Dylan Thomas
 When, like a running grave, time tracks you down,
Your calm and cuddled is a scythe of hairs,
Love in her gear is slowly through the house,
Up naked stairs, a turtle in a hearse,
Hauled to the dome,

Comes, like a scissors stalking, tailor age,
Deliver me who timid in my tribe,
Of love am barer than Cadaver's trap
Robbed of the foxy tongue, his footed...Read more of this...

The Rear-Guard

by Siegfried Sassoon
 Groping along the tunnel, step by step, 
He winked his prying torch with patching glare 
From side to side, and sniffed the unwholesome air.

Tins, boxes, bottles, shapes too vague to know, 
A mirror smashed, the mattress from a bed; 
And he, exploring fifty feet below 
The rosy gloom of battle overhead. 
Tripping, he grapped the wall; saw someone lie...Read more of this...

But for the Grace of God

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 “There, but for the grace of God, goes…”


There is a question that I ask,
And ask again: 
What hunger was half-hidden by the mask 
That he wore then? 

There was a word for me to say
That I said not; 
And in the past there was another day 
That I forgot: 

A dreary, cold, unwholesome day, 
Racked overhead,—
As if the world...Read more of this...

Alciphron and Leucippe

by Walter Savage Landor
 An ancient chestnut’s blossoms threw
Their heavy odour over two:
Leucippe, it is said, was one;
The other, then, was Alciphron.
‘Come, come! why should we stand beneath?’
This hollow tree’s unwholesome breath?’
Said Alciphron, ‘here’s not a blade
Of grass or moss, and scanty shade.
Come; it is just the hour to rove
In the lone dingle shepherds love;
There, straight and tall, the hazel twig
Divides the crook?ed...Read more of this...

Hymn 57

by Isaac Watts
 Original sin.

Rom. 5:12, etc.; Psa. 51:5; Job 14:4. 

Backward with humble shame we look
On our original;
How is our nature dashed and broke
In our first father's fall!

To all that's good averse and blind,
But prone to all that's ill
What dreadful darkness veils our mind!
How obstinate our will!

[Conceived in sin, O wretched state!
Before we draw our breath
The first young pulse begins to...Read more of this...

Ode on Adversity

by Mary Darby Robinson
 WHERE o'er my head, the deaf'ning Tempest blew, 
And Night's cold lamp cast forth a feeble ray; 
Where o'er the woodlands, vivid light'nings flew, 
Cleft the strong oak, and scorch'd the blossom'd spray; 
At morn's approach, I mark the sun's warm glow 
O'er the grey hill a crimson radiance throw; 
I mark the silv'ry fragrant dew, 
Give lustre to...Read more of this...

A Hand-Mirror

by Walt Whitman
 HOLD it up sternly! See this it sends back! (Who is it? Is it you?) 
Outside fair costume—within ashes and filth, 
No more a flashing eye—no more a sonorous voice or springy step; 
Now some slave’s eye, voice, hands, step, 
A drunkard’s breath, unwholesome eater’s face, venerealee’s flesh,
Lungs rotting away piecemeal, stomach sour and cankerous, 
Joints rheumatic, bowels clogged...Read more of this...

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