Famous Unwilling Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Unwilling poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous unwilling poems. These examples illustrate what a famous unwilling poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Anna Akhmatova
Not under foreign skies
Nor under foreign wings protected -
I shared all this with my own people
There, where misfortune had abandoned us.
[1961]
INSTEAD OF A PREFACE
During the frightening years of the Yezhov terror, I
spent seventeen months waiting in prison queues in
Leningrad. One day, somehow, someone 'picked me out'.
On that occasion there was a woman standing behind me,
her...Read more of this...
by
Sherman Alexie
When I was twelve, I shoplifted a pair
Of basketball shoes. We could not afford
Them otherwise. But when I tied them on,
I found that I couldn’t hit a shot.
When the ball clanked off the rim, I felt
Only guilt, guilt, guilt. O, immoral shoes!
O, kicks made of paranoia and rue!
Distraught but unwilling to get caught
Or confess, I threw those cursed Nikes
Into the...Read more of this...
by
Edwin Arlington Robinson
The Deacon thought. “I know them,” he began,
“And they are all you ever heard of them—
Allurable to no sure theorem,
The scorn or the humility of man.
You say ‘Can I believe it?’—and I can;
And I’m unwilling even to condemn
The benefaction of a stratagem
Like hers—and I’m a Presbyterian.
“Though blind, with but a wandering hour...Read more of this...
by
William Wordsworth
I
There was a roaring in the wind all night;
The rain came heavily and fell in floods;
But now the sun is rising calm and bright;
The birds are singing in the distant woods;
Over his own sweet voice the Stock-dove broods;
The Jay makes answer as the Magpie chatters;
And all the air is filled with pleasant...Read more of this...
by
Randall Jarrell
One looks from the train
Almost as one looked as a child. In the sunlight
What I see still seems to me plain,
I am safe; but at evening
As the lands darken, a questioning
Precariousness comes over everything.
Once after a day of rain
I lay longing to be cold; after a while
I was cold again, and hunched shivering
Under the quilt's many colors, gray
With the...Read more of this...
by
Robert Burns
DWELLER in yon dungeon dark,
Hangman of creation! mark,
Who in widow-weeds appears,
Laden with unhonour’d years,
Noosing with care a bursting purse,
Baited with many a deadly curse?
STROPHE View the wither’d Beldam’s face;
Can thy keen inspection trace
Aught of Humanity’s sweet, melting grace?
Note that eye, ’tis rheum o’erflows;
Pity’s flood there never rose,
See these hands ne’er...Read more of this...
by
Jane Taylor
"Ah! don't you remember, 'tis almost December,
And soon will the holidays come;
Oh, 'twill be so funny, I've plenty of money,
I'll buy me a sword and a drum. "
Thus said little Harry, unwilling to tarry,
Impatient from school to depart;
But we shall discover, this holiday lover
Knew little what was in his heart.
For when on returning, he gave up...Read more of this...
by
John Keats
What though, for showing truth to flattered state,
Kind Hunt was shut in prison, yet has he,
In his immortal spirit, been as free
As the sky-searching lark, and as elate.
Minion of grandeur! think you he did wait?
Think you he nought but prison-walls did see,
Till, so unwilling, thou unturnedst the key?
Ah, no! far happier, nobler was his fate!
In Spenser's halls he strayed,...Read more of this...
by
Fannie Isabelle Sherrick
Oh tell me not of the lands so old
Where the Orient treasures its hills of gold,
And the rivers lie in the sun's bright rays
Forever singing the old world's praise.
Nor proudly boast of the gardens grand
That spring to earth at a king's command;
There are treasures here in the far great West
That rival the hills on the Orient's crest.
Far from the sight...Read more of this...
by
Sarojini Naidu
UNWILLING priestess in thy cruel fane,
Long hast thou held me, pitiless god of Pain,
Bound to thy worship by reluctant vows,
My tired breast girt with suffering, and my brows
Anointed with perpetual weariness.
Long have I borne thy service, through the stress
Of rigorous years, sad days and slumberless nights,
Performing thine inexorable rites.
For thy dark...Read more of this...
by
John Keats
My spirit is too weak; mortality
Weighs heavily on me like unwilling sleep,
And each imagined pinnacle and steep
Of godlike hardship tells me I must die
Like a sick eagle looking at the sky.
Yet 'tis a gentle luxury to weep,
That I have not the cloudy winds to keep
Fresh for the opening of the morning's eye.
Such dim-conceived glories of the brain
Bring round the...Read more of this...
by
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
"As unto the bow the cord is,
So unto the man is woman;
Though she bends him, she obeys him,
Though she draws him, yet she follows;
Useless each without the other!"
Thus the youthful Hiawatha
Said within himself and pondered,
Much perplexed by various feelings,
Listless, longing, hoping, fearing,
Dreaming still of Minnehaha,
Of the lovely Laughing Water,
In...Read more of this...
by
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
WHO rides there so late through the night dark and drear?
The father it is, with his infant so dear;
He holdeth the boy tightly clasp'd in his arm,
He holdeth him safely, he keepeth him warm.
"My son, wherefore seek'st thou thy face thus to hide?"
"Look, father, the Erl-King is close by our side!
Dost see not the Erl-King, with crown and with...Read more of this...
by
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
X. Hiawatha's Wooing
"As unto the bow the cord is,
So unto the man is woman,
Though she bends him, she obeys him,
Though she draws him, yet she follows,
Useless each without the other!"
Thus the youthful Hiawatha
Said within himself and pondered,
Much perplexed by various feelings,
Listless, longing, hoping, fearing,
Dreaming still of Minnehaha,
Of the lovely Laughing Water,
In the land of the Dacotahs.
"Wed a maiden of...Read more of this...
by
Robert Seymour Bridges
Perfect little body, without fault or stain on thee,
With promise of strength and manhood full and fair!
Though cold and stark and bare,
The bloom and the charm of life doth awhile remain on thee.
Thy mother's treasure wert thou;—alas! no longer
To visit her heart with wondrous joy; to be
Thy father's pride:—ah, he
Must gather his...Read more of this...
by
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
When man had ceased to utter his lament,
A god then let me tell my tale of sorrow.
WHAT hope of once more meeting is there now
In the still-closed blossoms of this day?
Both heaven and hell thrown open seest thou;
What wav'ring thoughts within the bosom play
No longer doubt! Descending from the sky,
She lifts thee in her arms to realms on...Read more of this...
by
Helen Hunt Jackson
Somewhere thou awaitest,
And I, with lips unkissed,
Weep that thus to latest
Thou puttest off our tryst!
The golden bowls are broken,
The silver cords untwine;
Almond flowers in token
Have bloomed,---that I am thine!
Others who would fly thee
In cowardly alarms,
Who hate thee and deny thee,
Thou foldest in thine arms!
How shall I entreat thee
No longer...Read more of this...
by
Robert Southey
Author Note: In Finland there is a Castle which is called the New Rock, moated about with a river of unfounded depth, the water black and the fish therein
very distateful to the palate. In this are spectres often seen, which
foreshew either the death of the Governor, or some prime officer
belonging to the place; and most commonly it appeareth in...Read more of this...
by
Robert Burns
’TIS Friendship’s pledge, my young, fair Friend,
Nor thou the gift refuse,
Nor with unwilling ear attend
The moralising Muse.
Since thou, in all thy youth and charms,
Must bid the world adieu,
(A world ’gainst Peace in constant arms)
To join the Friendly Few.
Since, thy gay morn of life o’ercast,
Chill came the tempest’s lour;
(And ne’er Misfortune’s eastern blast
Did nip...Read more of this...
by
Edgar Bowers
Love is no more.
It died as the mind dies: the pure desire
Relinquishing the blissful form it wore,
The ample joy and clarity expire.
Regret is vain.
Then do not grieve for what you would efface,
The sudden failure of the past, the pain
Of its unwilling change, and the disgrace.
Leave innocence,
And modify your nature by the grief
Which poses to the will indifference
That no desire...Read more of this...
by
Edwin Arlington Robinson
Take it away, and swallow it yourself.
Ha! Look you, there’s a rat.
Last night there were a dozen on that shelf,
And two of them were living in my hat.
Look! Now he goes, but he’ll come back—
Ha? But he will, I say …
Il reviendra-z-à Pâques,
Ou à la Trinité …
Be very sure that he’ll return again;...Read more of this...
by
Friedrich von Schiller
Forever fair, forever calm and bright,
Life flies on plumage, zephyr-light,
For those who on the Olympian hill rejoice--
Moons wane, and races wither to the tomb,
And 'mid the universal ruin, bloom
The rosy days of Gods--With man, the choice,
Timid and anxious, hesitates between
The sense's pleasure and the soul's content;
While on celestial brows, aloft and sheen,
The beams of both are blent.
Seekest thou on...Read more of this...
by
Edward Taylor
for my father, 1922-1944
Your face did not rot
like the others--the co-pilot,
for example, I saw him
yesterday. His face is corn-
mush: his wife and daughter,
the poor ignorant people, stare
as if he will compose soon.
He was more wronged than Job.
But your face did not rot
like the others--it grew dark,
and hard like ebony;
the features progressed in their
distinction. If I could cajole
you to come...Read more of this...
by
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Though loth to grieve
The evil time's sole patriot,
I cannot leave
My buried thought
For the priest's cant,
Or statesman's rant.
If I refuse
My study for their politique,
Which at the best is trick,
The angry muse
Puts confusion in my brain.
But who is he that prates
Of the culture of mankind,
Of better arts and life?
Go, blind worm, go,
Behold the famous States
Harrying Mexico
With rifle and with knife.
Or who,...Read more of this...
by
Isaac Watts
Surprising deliverance.
When God restored our captive state,
Joy was our song, and grace our theme;
The grace beyond our hopes so great
That joy appeared a painted dream.
The scoffer owns thy hand, and pays
Unwilling honors to thy name;
While we with pleasure shout thy praise,
With cheerful notes thy love proclaim.
When we review our dismal fears,
'Twas hard to think they'd vanish so;
With God we...Read more of this...
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