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Famous Fooling Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Frost, Robert
...ch-all full of attic clutter. 
I often think of the smooth hickory bars. 
It got so I would say--you know, half fooling-- 
"It's time I took my turn upstairs in jail"-- 
Just as you will till it becomes a habit. 
No wonder I was glad to get away. 
Mind you, I waited till Len said the word. 
I didn't want the blame if things went wrong. 
I was glad though, no end, when we moved out, 
And I looked to be happy, and I was, 
As I said, for a while--but I do...Read more of this...



by Browning, Robert
...ed or not, makes great the life: 
"Try to be Shakespeare, leave the rest to fate!" 
Spare my self-knowledge--there's no fooling me! 
If I prefer remaining my poor self, 
I say so not in self-dispraise but praise. 
If I'm a Shakespeare, let the well alone; 
Why should I try to be what now I am? 
If I'm no Shakespeare, as too probable,-- 
His power and consciousness and self-delight 
And all we want in common, shall I find-- 
Trying for ever? while on points of taste 
Where...Read more of this...

by Owen, Wilfred
...s cobbled with their brothers.
The front line withers,
But they are troops who fade, not flowers
For poets' tearful fooling:
Men, gaps for filling
Losses who might have fought
Longer; but no one bothers.


 II

And some cease feeling
Even themselves or for themselves.
Dullness best solves
The tease and doubt of shelling,
And Chance's strange arithmetic
Comes simpler than the reckoning of their shilling.
They keep no check on Armies' decimation.


 III

Hap...Read more of this...

by Sandburg, Carl
...THERE was a high majestic fooling
Day before yesterday in the yellow corn.

And day after to-morrow in the yellow corn
There will be high majestic fooling.

The ears ripen in late summer
And come on with a conquering laughter,
Come on with a high and conquering laughter.

The long-tailed blackbirds are hoarse.
One of the smaller blackbirds chitters on a stalk
And a sp...Read more of this...

by Simic, Charles
...k to her clothes . . .

And when I did not; I just sat there.
The rare rush of wind in the leaves
Still fooling me now and then,
Until the chill made me go in....Read more of this...



by Forche, Carolyn
...them in 
his hands, shook it in our faces, dropped it into a 
water glass. It came alive there. I am tired of 
fooling around he said. As for the rights of anyone, 
tell your people they can go f--- themselves. He 
swept the ears to the floor with his arm and held 
the last of his wine in the air. Something for your 
poetry, no? he said. Some of the ears on the floor 
caught this scrap of his voice. Some of the ears on 
the floor were pressed to t...Read more of this...

by Edson, Russell
...said then go into the yard and do 
not grow in the living room as your roots may 
ruin the carpet.

 He said I was fooling I am not a tree and he 
dropped his leaves.

 But his parents said look it is fall....Read more of this...

by Service, Robert William
...me that 'twas nothing but the thrumming
 Of a wood-pecker a-rapping on the hollow of a tree;
And she thought that I was fooling when I said it was the drumming
 Of the mustering of legions, and 'twas calling unto me;
 'Twas calling me to pull my freight and hop across the sea.

And a-mending of my fish-nets sure I started up in wonder,
 For I heard a savage roaring and 'twas coming from afar;
Oh the wife she tried to tell me that 'twas only summer thunder,
 And she laughe...Read more of this...

by Service, Robert William
...every trip;
To hit the high spots sometimes, and to let your chances slip;
To know you're acting foolish, yet to go on fooling still,
Till Nature calls a show-down, and you

 Pay the bill.

Time has got a little bill -- get wise while yet you may,
For the debit side's increasing in a most alarming way;
The things you had no right to do, the things you should have done,
They're all put down; it's up to you to pay for every one.
So eat, drink and be merry, have a good ...Read more of this...

by Sandburg, Carl
...Singing ghost songs
And love to the harvest moon;
I am a jack-o'-lantern
With terrible teeth
And the children know
I am fooling....Read more of this...

by Brautigan, Richard
...bed.

 "Why bother?" he had said. "You're only going to get up,

anyway. Be prepared for it. You're not fooling anyone by

taking your clothes off when you go to bed."

 He went into the kitchen, stepping around the littlest

children, whose wet diapers were in various stages of anarchy.

He made his breakfast: a slice of homemade bread covered

with Karo syrup and peanut butter.

"Let's go," he said.

 We left the house with him still eating t...Read more of this...

by Service, Robert William
...rely "Undesirables", artistic more or less;
My horny hands are Chopin-wise; you quote your Browning well;
And yet we're fooling round for gold in this damned wilderness:
The joke is, if we found it, we would both go straight to hell.

Well, maybe we won't find it -- and at least we've got the "life".
We're both as brown as berries, and could wrestle with a bear:
(That bannock's raising nicely, pal; just jab it with your knife.)
Fine specimens of manhood they would...Read more of this...

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