Famous Erratic Poems by Famous Poets

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

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After the Engagement

...---
I am wearing Joe's diamond, my dear!

Yes, mamma is quite ecstatic
That I am engaged to Joe;
She thinks I am rather erratic,
And feared that I might say "no."
But, Mabel, I'm twenty-seven
(Though nobody dreams it, dear),
And a fortune like Joe's isn't given
To lay at one's feet each year.

You know my old fancy for Harry---
Or, at least, I am certain you guessed
That it took all my sense not to marry
And go with that fellow out west.
But that was my very first season---
A...Read more of this...
by Wilcox, Ella Wheeler


Clancy Of The Overflow

...it, and verbatim I will quote it:
 "Clancy's gone to Queensland droving, and we don't know where he are." 

In my wild erratic fancy visions come to me of Clancy
 Gone a-droving "down the Cooper" where the Western drovers go;
As the stock are slowly stringing, Clancy rides behind them singing,
 For the drover's life has pleasures that the townsfolk never know. 

And the bush hath friends to meet him, and their kindly voices greet him
 In the murmur of the breezes and the riv...Read more of this...
by Paterson, Andrew Barton

Deceptions

...ole you if I could. What can be said,
Except that suffering is exact, but where
Desire takes charge, readings will grow erratic?
For you would hardly care
That you were less deceived, out on that bed,
Than he was, stumbling up the breathless stair
To burst into fulfillment's desolate attic....Read more of this...
by Larkin, Philip

Misconceptions

...feet hung to,— 
So to be singled out, built in, and sung to!

This is a heart the Queen leant on,
Thrilled in a minute erratic,
Ere the true bosom she bent on,
Meet for love's regal dalmatic.
Oh, what a fancy ecstatic
Was the poor heart's, ere the wanderer went on— 
Love to be saved for it, proffered to, spent on!...Read more of this...
by Browning, Robert

Noctambule

...he chairs,
Pile them on the tables;
Let us to our lairs
Underneath the gables.

Up the old Boul' Mich'
Climb with steps erratic.
Steady . . . how I wish
I was in my attic!
Full am I with cheer;
In my heart the joy stirs;
Couldn't be the beer,
Must have been the oysters.

In obscene array
Garbage cans spill over;
How I wish that they
Smelled as sweet as clover!
Charing women wait;
Cafes drop their shutters;
Rats perambulate
Up and down the gutters.

Down the darkened street
Ma...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William


Poem (In the morning when it was raining)

...n it was raining,
Then the birds were hectic and loudy;
Through all the reign is fall's entertaining;
Their singing was erratic and full of disorder:
They did not remember the summer blue
Or the orange of June. They did not think at all
Of the great red and bursting ball
Of the kingly sun's terror and tempest, blazing,
Once the slanting rain threw over all
The colorless curtains of the ceaseless spontaneous fall....Read more of this...
by Schwartz, Delmore

Poem (Remember midsummer: the fragrance of box)

...

Now, in the cold glittering morning, shining at the
 window,
The pears hang, yellowed and over-ripe, sodden brown in
 erratic places, all bunched and dangling,
Like a small choir of bagpipes, silent and waiting. And I
 rise now,
Go to the window and gaze at the fallen or falling country
-- And see! -- the fields are pencilled light brown 
 or are the dark brownness of the last autumn
-- So much has shrunken to straight brown lines, thin as
 the
 bare thin trees,
Save where ...Read more of this...
by Schwartz, Delmore

Poem To Be Placed In A Bottle And Cast Out To Sea

...the only Valentine I’ve had in sixty years

These two do know my longings and my fears,



Dear Simon Jenner, Eratica’s erratic editor, your speech

So like the staccato of a bren, yet loaded

With a lifetime’s hard-won ken of poetry’s obscurest corners.

I salute David Wright, that ‘difficult deaf son’

Of the sixties, acknowledged my own youthful spasm of enthusiasm

But Simon you must share the honour with Jimmy Keery,

Of whom I will admit I’m somewhat leery,

His critica...Read more of this...
by Tebb, Barry

Thomas Rhodes

...ry well, you liberals,
And navigators into realms intellectual,
You sailors through heights imaginative,
Blown about by erratic currents, tumbling into air pockets,
You Margaret Fuller Slacks, Petits,
And Tennessee Claflin Shopes --
You found with all your boasted wisdom
How hard at the last it is
To keep the soul from splitting into cellular atoms.
While we, seekers of earth's treasures,
Getters and hoarders of gold,
Are self-contained, compact, harmonized,
Even to the end....Read more of this...
by Masters, Edgar Lee

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