Famous Dick Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Who is Kator Anyhow?

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 Why, oh why was Kater lifted 
From the darkness, where he drifted 
All unknown, and raised to honour, 
Side by side with Dick O'connor, 
In the Council, free from row? 
Who is Kater, anyhow? 
Did he lend our armies rally, 
Like the recent Billy Dalley? 
Did he lend a Premier money, 
Like -- (No libels here, my sonny. --...Read more of this...

Convicts Love Canaries

by Robert William Service
 Dick's dead! It was the Polack guard
Put powdered glass into his cage
When I was tramping round the yard,--
I could have killed him in my rage.
I slugged him with that wrench I stole:
That's why I'm rotting in the Hole.

Dick's dead! Sure I wish I was too.
His honey breast, his lacy claws
I kissed and cried, for well I knew
They murdered him....Read more of this...

Nomenclature

by Alan Dugan
 My mother never heard of Freud
and she decided as a little girl
that she would call her husband Dick
no matter what his first name was
and did. He called her Ditty. They
called me Bud, and our generic names
amused my analyst. That must, she said,
explain the crazy times I had in bed
and quoted Freud: "Life is pain."
"What do women want?" and "My
prosthesis...Read more of this...

Local Lad

by Robert William Service
 I never saw a face so bright
 With brilliant blood and joy,
As was the grinning mug last night
 Of Dick, our local boy,
When with a clumsy, lucky clout
 He knocked the champion out.

A week ago he swung a pick
 And sweated in a ditch.
Tonight he's togged up mighty slick,
 And fancies himself rich.
With floozies, fine food, bubbly drink
 He'll...Read more of this...

Winter

by Walter de la Mare
 When icicles hang by the wall 
And Dick the shepherd blows his nail 
And Tom bears logs into the hall, 
And milk comes frozen home in pail, 
When Blood is nipped and ways be foul, 
Then nightly sings the staring owl, 
Tu-who; 
Tu-whit, tu-who: a merry note, 
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot. 

When all aloud the wind...Read more of this...

The Jubilee Sovreign

by Marriott Edgar
 On Jubilee Day the Ramsbottoms
Invited relations to tea, 
Including young Albert's grandmother- 
An awkward old . . party, was she. 

She'd seen Queen Victoria's accession
And `er wedding to Albert (the Good) 
But she got quite upset when young Albert 
Asked `er `ow she'd got on in the Flood.

She cast quite a damper on't party, 
But she warmed up a...Read more of this...

A Wall Flower

by Amy Levy
 I lounge in the doorway and languish in vain
While Tom, Dick and Harry are dancing with Jane


My spirit rises to the music's beat;
There is a leaden fiend lurks in my feet!
To move unto your motion, Love, were sweet.

Somewhere, I think, some other where, not here,
In other ages, on another sphere,
I danced with you, and you with me, my dear.

In...Read more of this...

Death In The Arctic

by Robert William Service
 I

I took the clock down from the shelf;
"At eight," said I, "I shoot myself."
It lacked a minute of the hour,
And as I waited all a-cower,
A skinful of black, boding pain,
Bits of my life came back again. . . .

"Mother, there's nothing more to eat --
Why don't you go out on the street?
Always you sit and cry and cry;
Here at...Read more of this...

The Fool

by Robert William Service
 "But it isn't playing the game," he said,
 And he slammed his books away;
"The Latin and Greek I've got in my head
 Will do for a duller day."
"Rubbish!" I cried; "The bugle's call
 Isn't for lads from school."
D'ye think he'd listen? Oh, not at all:
 So I called him a fool, a fool.

Now there's his dog by his empty...Read more of this...

My Dogs My Boss

by Robert William Service
 Each day when it's anighing three
 Old Dick looks at the clock,
Then proudly brings my stick to me
 To mind me of our walk.
And in his doggy rapture he
 Does everything but talk.

But since I lack his zip and zest
 My old bones often tire;
And so I ventured to suggest
 Today we hug the fire.
But with what wailing he...Read more of this...

Saved by Music

by William Topaz McGonagall
 At on time, in America, many years ago,
Large gray wolves wont to wander to and fro;
And from the farm yards they carried pigs and calves away,
Which they devoured ravenously, without dismay. 

But, as the story goes, there was a ***** fiddler called old Dick,
Who was invited by a wedding party to give them music,
In the winter time, when the...Read more of this...

June Dreams In January

by Sidney Lanier
 "So pulse, and pulse, thou rhythmic-hearted Noon
That liest, large-limbed, curved along the hills,
In languid palpitation, half a-swoon
With ardors and sun-loves and subtle thrills;

"Throb, Beautiful! while the fervent hours exhale
As kisses faint-blown from thy finger-tips
Up to the sun, that turn him passion-pale
And then as red as any virgin's lips.

"O tender Darkness, when June-day hath ceased,
-- Faint Odor from the day-flower's...Read more of this...

Spring and Winter ii

by William Shakespeare
 WHEN icicles hang by the wall, 
 And Dick the shepherd blows his nail, 
And Tom bears logs into the hall, 
 And milk comes frozen home in pail, 
When blood is nipp'd, and ways be foul, 
Then nightly sings the staring owl, 
 To-whit! 
To-who!--a merry note, 
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot. 

When all aloud the...Read more of this...

The revolution will not be televised

by Gil Scott-Heron
You will not be able to stay home, brother
 You will not be able to plug in, turn on and cop out
 You will not be able to lose yourself on skag
 And skip out for beer during commercials
 Because the revolution will not be televised

The revolution will not be televised
 The revolution will not be brought to you by...Read more of this...

When I Came Last to Ludlow

by A E Housman
 When I came last to Ludlow 
Amidst the moonlight pale, 
Two friends kept step beside me, 
Two honest friends and hale. 

Now Dick lies long in the churchyard, 
And Ned lies long in jail, 
And I come home to Ludlow 
Amidst the moonlight pale....Read more of this...

Greedy Richard

by Jane Taylor
 "I think I want some pies this morning," 
Said Dick, stretching himself and yawning; 
So down he threw his slate and books,
And saunter'd to the pastry-cook's. 

And there he cast his greedy eyes
Round on the jellies and the pies,
So to select, with anxious care,
The very nicest that was there. 

At last the point was thus decided:
As his opinion was...Read more of this...

Reading Moby-Dick at 30000 Feet

by Tony Hoagland
 At this height, Kansas
is just a concept,
a checkerboard design of wheat and corn

no larger than the foldout section
of my neighbor's travel magazine.
At this stage of the journey

I would estimate the distance
between myself and my own feelings
is roughly the same as the mileage

from Seattle to New York,
so I can lean back into the upholstered interval
between Muzak and lunch,

a little bored,...Read more of this...

Crapshooters

by Carl Sandburg
 SOMEBODY loses whenever somebody wins.
This was known to the Chaldeans long ago.
And more: somebody wins whenever somebody loses.
This too was in the savvy of the Chaldeans.

They take it heaven’s hereafter is an eternity of crap games where they try their wrists years and years and no police come with a wagon; the game goes on forever.
The spots on the...Read more of this...

The drum

by Eugene Field
 I'm a beautiful red, red drum,
And I train with the soldier boys;
As up the street we come,
Wonderful is our noise!
There's Tom, and Jim, and Phil,
And Dick, and Nat, and Fred,
While Widow Cutler's Bill
And I march on ahead,
With a r-r-rat-tat-tat
And a tum-titty-um-tum-tum -
Oh, there's bushels of fun in that
For boys with a little red drum!

The Injuns came last night
While the...Read more of this...

Sly Dick

by Thomas Chatterton
 Sharp was the frost, the wind was high 
And sparkling stars bedeckt the sky 
Sly Dick in arts of cunning skill'd, 
Whose rapine all his pockets fill'd, 
Had laid him down to take his rest 
And soothe with sleep his anxious breast. 
'Twas thus a dark infernal sprite 
A native of the blackest night, 
Portending mischief to devise 
Upon...Read more of this...

Letter To Kizer From Seattle

by Richard Hugo
 Dear Condor: Much thanks for that telephonic support
from North Carolina when I suddenly went ape
in the Iowa tulips. Lord, but I'm ashamed.
I was afraid, it seemed, according to the doctor
of impending success, winning some poetry prizes
or getting a wet kiss. The more popular I got,
the softer the soft cry in my head: Don't believe them.
You were never good. Then...Read more of this...

Clover

by Sidney Lanier
 Inscribed to the Memory of John Keats.



Dear uplands, Chester's favorable fields,
My large unjealous Loves, many yet one --
A grave good-morrow to your Graces, all,
Fair tilth and fruitful seasons!
Lo, how still!
The midmorn empties you of men, save me;
Speak to your lover, meadows! None can hear.
I lie as lies yon placid Brandywine,
Holding the hills and heavens in my heart
For contemplation.
'Tis a...Read more of this...

The Sacrifices

by Robert William Service
 Twin boys I bore, my joy, my care,
My hope, my life they were to me;
Their father, dashing, debonair,
Fell fighting at Gallipoli.
His daring gallantry, no doubt,
They 'herited in equal share:
So when the Second War broke out,
With eagerness they chose the air.

Said Dick: "The sea's too bally slow;
A flying ship's the one for me."
Said Peter: "Land! Foot-slogging - no!
The jolly sky's...Read more of this...

Athabaska Dick

by Robert William Service
 When the boys come out from Lac Labiche in the lure of the early Spring,
To take the pay of the "Hudson's Bay", as their fathers did before,
They are all a-glee for the jamboree, and they make the Landing ring
With a whoop and a whirl, and a "Grab your girl", and a rip and a skip and a roar.
For the...Read more of this...

Gus: The Theatre Cat

by T S (Thomas Stearns) Eliot
 Gus is the Cat at the Theatre Door.
His name, as I ought to have told you before,
Is really Asparagus. That's such a fuss
To pronounce, that we usually call him just Gus.
His coat's very shabby, he's thin as a rake,
And he suffers from palsy that makes his paw shake.
Yet he was, in his youth, quite the smartest of Cats--
But no...Read more of this...

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