Famous Good Time Poems by Famous Poets

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

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The Journey

by Rabindranath Tagore
 Anghiari is medieval, a sleeve sloping down
A steep hill, suddenly sweeping out
To the edge of a cliff, and dwindling.
But far up the mountain, behind the town,
We too were swept out, out by the wind,
Alone with the Tuscan grass.

Wind had been blowing across the hills
For days, and everything now was graying gold
With dust, everything we saw, even
Some small children scampering...Read more of this...

Wallflower

by Robert William Service
 Till midnight her needle she plied
To finish her pretty pink dress;
"Oh, bless you, my darling," she sighed;
"I hope you will be a success."
As she entered the Oddfellow's Hall
With the shy thrill of maiden romance
She felt like the belle of the Ball,
But . . . nobody asked her to dance.

Her programme was clutched in her hand;
Her smile was a tiny...Read more of this...

In the Long Run

by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
 In the long run fame finds the deserving man. 
The lucky wight may prosper for a day, 
But in good time true merit leads the van, 
And vain pretense, unnoticed, goes its way. 
There is no Chance, no Destiny, no Fate, 
But Fortune smiles on those who work and wait, 
In the long run.

In the long run all goodly...Read more of this...

Mary smith

by Eugene Field
 Away down East where I was reared amongst my Yankee kith,
There used to live a pretty girl whose name was Mary Smith;
And though it's many years since last I saw that pretty girl,
And though I feel I'm sadly worn by Western strife and whirl;
Still, oftentimes, I think about the old familiar place,
Which, someway, seemed the brighter for Miss Mary's...Read more of this...

Hey Baby

by Maggie Estep
 Liner Notes - (from No More Mister Nice Girl)

I was having a foul day. Some
geezer harrassed me on the street and I got completely bent out of shape,
but the guy was huge so I just stuffed my retort. Went home to drink
coffee. No milk. I ripped through the cupboards and found Non Dairy Creamer.
It tasted like ****. I got...Read more of this...

In The Secular Night

by Margaret Atwood
 In the secular night you wander around
alone in your house. It's two-thirty.
Everyone has deserted you,
or this is your story;
you remember it from being sixteen,
when the others were out somewhere, having a good time,
or so you suspected,
and you had to baby-sit.
You took a large scoop of vanilla ice-cream
and filled up the glass with grapejuice
and ginger ale, and put on Glenn...Read more of this...

Bad Day At The Beauty Salon

by Maggie Estep
 I was a 20 year old unemployed receptionist with
dyed orange dreadlocks sprouting out of my skull. I needed a job, but first,
I needed a haircut.

So I head for this beauty salon on Avenue B.
I'm gonna get a hairdo.
I'm gonna look just like those hot Spanish haircut models, become brown
and bodacious, grow some 7 inch fingernails painted ***** red and...Read more of this...

Wounded

by Robert William Service
 Is it not strange? A year ago to-day,
 With scarce a thought beyond the hum-drum round,
I did my decent job and earned my pay;
 Was averagely happy, I'll be bound.
Ay, in my little groove I was content,
 Seeing my life run smoothly to the end,
With prosy days in stolid labour spent,
 And jolly nights, a pipe, a glass, a...Read more of this...

The Reckoning

by Robert William Service
 It's fine to have a blow-out in a fancy restaurant,
With terrapin and canvas-back and all the wine you want;
To enjoy the flowers and music, watch the pretty women pass,
Smoke a choice cigar, and sip the wealthy water in your glass.
It's bully in a high-toned joint to eat and drink your fill,
But it's quite another matter when you

 Pay the...Read more of this...

The Dover Bitch: A Criticism Of Life

by Anthony Hecht
 So there stood Matthew Arnold and this girl
With the cliffs of England crumbling away behind them,
And he said to her, "Try to be true to me,
And I'll do the same for you, for things are bad
All over, etc., etc."
Well now, I knew this girl. It's true she had read
Sophocles in a fairly good translation
And caught that bitter allusion to...Read more of this...

A Game Of Chess

by T S (Thomas Stearns) Eliot
  The Chair she sat in, like a burnished throne,
  Glowed on the marble, where the glass
  Held up by standards wrought with fruited vines
  From which a golden Cupidon peeped out                        ...Read more of this...

The two little skeezucks

by Eugene Field
 There were two little skeezucks who lived in the isle
Of Boo in a southern sea;
They clambered and rollicked in heathenish style
In the boughs of their cocoanut tree.
They didn't fret much about clothing and such
And they recked not a whit of the ills
That sometimes accrue
From having to do
With tailor and laundry bills.

The two little skeezucks once heard of a Fair
Far...Read more of this...

Sir Galahad a Christmas Mystery

by William Morris
 It is the longest night in all the year,
Near on the day when the Lord Christ was born;
Six hours ago I came and sat down here,
And ponder'd sadly, wearied and forlorn.

The winter wind that pass'd the chapel door,
Sang out a moody tune, that went right well
With mine own thoughts: I look'd down on the floor,
Between my feet, until I...Read more of this...

On The Meeting Of García Lorca And Hart Crane

by Philip Levine
 Brooklyn, 1929. Of course Crane's
been drinking and has no idea who
this curious Andalusian is, unable
even to speak the language of poetry.
The young man who brought them
together knows both Spanish and English,
but he has a headache from jumping
back and forth from one language
to another. For a moment's relief
he goes to the window to look
down on the East River, darkening
below as...Read more of this...

Thanksgiving

by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
 We walk on starry fields of white
And do not see the daisies;
For blessings common in our sight
We rarely offer praises.
We sigh for some supreme delight
To crown our lives with splendor,
And quite ignore our daily store
Of pleasures sweet and tender.

Our cares are bold and push their way
Upon our thought and feeling.
They hang about us all the day,
Our time from pleasure...Read more of this...

Lament

by Edna St. Vincent Millay
 When I was a windy boy and a bit
And the black spit of the chapel fold,
(Sighed the old ram rod, dying of women),
I tiptoed shy in the gooseberry wood,
The rude owl cried like a tell-tale tit,
I skipped in a blush as the big girls rolled
Nine-pin down on donkey's common,
And on seesaw sunday nights I wooed
Whoever I would with my...Read more of this...

Hymn To Death

by William Cullen Bryant
 Oh! could I hope the wise and pure in heart
Might hear my song without a frown, nor deem
My voice unworthy of the theme it tries,--
I would take up the hymn to Death, and say
To the grim power, The world hath slandered thee
And mocked thee. On thy dim and shadowy brow
They place an iron crown, and call thee king
Of terrors,...Read more of this...

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