Get Your Premium Membership

Famous Johnny Poems by Famous Poets

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

See also:

by Moore, Thomas
...e South Sea sent
from its frothy element!
Come with me, and we will blow
Lots of bubbles, as we go.
Mix the lather, Johnny W--lks,
Thou, who rhym'st so well to bilks;
Mix the lather - who can be
Fitter for such task than thee,
Great M.P. for Sudsbury!

For the frothy charm is ripe,
Puffing Peter bring thy pipe, --
Thou, whom ancient Coventry,
Once so dearly lov'd, that she
Knew not which to her was sweeter,
Peeping Tom or Puffing Peter; --
Puff the bubbles high in...Read more of this...



by Estep, Maggie
...
that ****, whadya got in there, sandwiches?"

I just go: "I'm sorry."

She starts snipping my carefully cultivated Johnny Lydon post-Pistols hairdo.
My foul little dreadlocks are flying around all over the place but I'm
not looking in the mirror cause I just don't want to know.

"So what's your name anyway?" My stylist demands then.
"Uh, Maggie."
"Maggie? Well, that's an okay name, but my name is Suzy."
"Yeah, so?"
"Yeah so it ain't just Suzy S.U....Read more of this...

by Harrison, Tony
...

Come on, it's not as if we're wanting verse.
It's not as if we're wanting a whole sonnet!

After tumblers of neat Johnny Walker
(I think that both of us we're on our third)
you said you'd always been a clumsy talker
and couldn't find another, shorter word
for 'beloved' or for 'wife' in the inscription,
but not too clumsy that you can't still cut:

You're supposed to be the bright boy at description
and you can't tell them what the **** to put!

I've got to find the righ...Read more of this...

by Sexton, Anne
...
The breakers cartwheeled in and over
to puddle their toes and test their perfect
skin. He was my brother, my small
Johnny brother, almost ten. We flopped
down upon a towel to grind the sand
under us and watched the Atlantic sea
move fire, like night sparklers;
and lost our weight in the festival
season. He dreamed, he said, to be
a man designed like a balanced wave...
how someday he would wait, giant
and straight.
Johnny, your dream moves summers
...Read more of this...

by Bukowski, Charles
...all the fear of the wasted years
laughs between my toes
no woman will live with me
no Florence Nightingale to watch the
Johnny Carson show with 
if I have a stroke I will lay here for six
days, my three cats hungrily ripping the flesh
from my elbows, wrists, head 
the radio playing classical music ... 
I promised myself never to write old man poems
but this one's funny, you see, excusable, be-
cause I've long gone past using myself and there's
still more left
here...Read more of this...



by Carroll, Lewis
...was his jacket,
Very fidgety his manner.
And his overbearing sisters
Called him names he disapproved of:
Called him Johnny, 'Daddy's Darling,'
Called him Jacky, 'Scrubby School-boy.'
And, so awful was the picture,
In comparison the others
Seemed, to one's bewildered fancy,
To have partially succeeded. 

Finally my Hiawatha
Tumbled all the tribe together,
('Grouped' is not the right expression),
And, as happy chance would have it
Did at last obtain a picture
Where ...Read more of this...

by Carroll, Lewis
...was his jacket,
Very fidgety his manner.
And his overbearing sisters
Called him names he disapproved of:
Called him Johnny, 'Daddy's Darling,'
Called him Jacky, 'Scrubby School-boy.'
And, so awful was the picture,
In comparison the others
Seemed, to one's bewildered fancy,
To have partially succeeded.


Finally my Hiawatha
Tumbled all the tribe together,
('Grouped' is not the right expression),
And, as happy chance would have it,
Did at last obtain a picture
Where...Read more of this...

by Carroll, Lewis
...was his jacket,
Very fidgety his manner.
And his overbearing sisters
Called him names he disapproved of:
Called him Johnny, 'Daddy's Darling,'
Called him Jacky, 'Scrubby School-boy.'
And, so awful was the picture,
In comparison the others
Seemed, to one's bewildered fancy,
To have partially succeeded. 

Finally my Hiawatha
Tumbled all the tribe together,
('Grouped' is not the right expression),
And, as happy chance would have it
Did at last obtain a picture
Where ...Read more of this...

by Paterson, Andrew Barton
...
And, when the Boer has dug himself a trench 
And placed his Maxim gun behind a rock, 
These mounted heroes -- pets of Johnny French -- 
They have to sit and wait and send for Jock! 

Yes, the Jocks -- Scotch Jocks, 
With their music that'd terrify an ox! 
When the bullets kick the sand 
You can hear the sharp command -- 
"Forty-Second! At the double! Charge the rocks!" 
And the charge is like a hood 
When they warmed the Highland blood 
Of the Jocks!...Read more of this...

by Paterson, Andrew Barton
...plain to hunt the beggar out. 
It ain't a game that grows on us -- there's lots of better fun 
Than charging at old Johnny with his little Maxim gun. 

On rocks a goat could scarcely climb, steep as the walls of Troy, 
He wheels a four-point-seven about as easy as a toy; 
With bullocks yoked and drag-ropes manned, he lifts her up the rocks 
And shifts her every now and then, as cunning as a fox. 
At night you mark her right ahead, you see her clean and clear, 
Nex...Read more of this...

by Lehman, David
...
wait a minute I'll be right back I am back that's
another line I've always wanted to put in a poem
what it will say on Johnny Carson's gravestone
"I'll be right back"...Read more of this...

by Collins, Billy
...beautiful.
That one you will never hear, guaranteed.

For no particular reason this afternoon
I am listening to Johnny Hartman
whose dark voice can curl around
the concepts on love, beauty, and foolishness
like no one else's can.
It feels like smoke curling up from a cigarette
someone left burning on a baby grand piano
around three o'clock in the morning;
smoke that billows up into the bright lights
while out there in the darkness
some of the beautiful fools have ...Read more of this...

by Goose, Mother
...Ride away, ride away,  Johnny shall ride,And he shall have pussy-cat  Tied to one side;And he shall have little dog  Tied to the other,And Johnny shall ride  To see his grandmother....Read more of this...

by Burns, Robert
...planted unco right;
Fast by an ingle, bleezing finely,
Wi' reaming swats, that drank divinely;
And at his elbow, Souter Johnny,
His ancient, trusty, drouthy crony;
Tam lo'ed him like a vera brither;
They had been fou for weeks thegither.
The night drave on wi' sangs an' clatter;
And aye the ale was growing better:
The landlady and Tam grew gracious,
Wi' favours, secret, sweet, and precious:
The Souter tauld his queerest stories;
The landlord's laugh was ready chorus:
The ...Read more of this...

by Lowell, Amy
...ning rails
Were polished so bright they sparked in the sun.
All the sails went up with a run:
"They call me Hanging Johnny,
Away-i-oh;
They call me Hanging Johnny,
So hang, 
boys, hang."
And the sun had set and the high moon whitened,
And the ship heeled over to the breeze.
He drew her into the shade of the sails,
And whispered tales
Of voyages in the China seas,
And his arm around her
Held and bound her.
She almost swooned,
With the breeze and the moon
And th...Read more of this...

by Benet, Stephen Vincent
..."Oh yes, I went over to Edmonstoun the other day and saw Johnny, mooning around as usual! He will never make his way." 
Letter of George Keats, 18-- 


Night falls; the great jars glow against the dark, 
Dark green, dusk red, and, like a coiling snake, 
Writhing eternally in smoky gyres, 
Great ropes of gorgeous vapor twist and turn 
Within them. So the Eastern fisherman 
Saw the swart genie rise when the ...Read more of this...

by Wordsworth, William
...P>   There is no need of boot or spur,  There is no need of whip or wand,  For Johnny has his holly-bough,  And with a hurly-burly now  He shakes the green bough in his hand.   And Betty o'er and o'er has told  The boy who is her best delight,  Both what to follow, what to shun,  What do, and what to leave undone,  How turn to left,...Read more of this...

by Field, Eugene
...he sun and wet by the dew,
It grew.

One day, passing that orchard through,
That little peach dawned on the view
Of Johnny Jones and his sister Sue--
Them two.

Up at that peach a club they threw--
Down from the stem on which it grew
Fell that peach of emerald hue.
Mon Dieu!

John took a bite and Sue a chew,
And then the trouble began to brew,--
Trouble the doctor couldn't subdue.
Too true!

Under the turf where the daisies grew
They planted John and his siste...Read more of this...

by Laurence Dunbar, Paul
...a-bowin' an' a-swayin' an' a-swingin',
Puttin' on huh high-toned mannahs all de time dat she was singin':
"Oh, swing Johnny up an' down, swing him all aroun',
Swing Johnny up an' down, swing him all aroun',
Oh, swing Johnny up an' down, swing him all aroun'
Fa' you well, my dahlin'."
Had to laff at ole man Johnson, he 's a caution now, you bet—
Hittin' clost onto a hunderd, but he 's spry an' nimble yet;
He 'lowed how a-so't o' gigglin', "I ain't ole, I 'll let you s...Read more of this...

by Sandburg, Carl
...l pockets and repositories of gravel and diamonds, dung and permanganese, and all clover and bumblebees, all bluegrass, johnny-jump-ups, grassroots, springs of running water or rivers or lakes or high spreading trees or hazel bushes or sumach or thorn-apple branches or high in the air the bird nest with spotted blue eggs shaken in the roaming wind of the treetops—

So it is scrawled here,
“I direct and devise
So and so and such and such,”
And this is the last word.
There ...Read more of this...

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Johnny poems.


Book: Reflection on the Important Things