Famous Just A Second Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Huddersfield - The Second Poetry Capital Of England

by Barry Tebb
 It brings to mind Swift leaving a fortune to Dublin

‘For the founding of a lunatic asylum - no place needs it more’.

The breathing beauty of the moors and cheap accommodation

Drew me but the total barbarity of the town stopped me from

Writing a single line: from the hideous facade of its railway

Station - Betjeman must have been drunk or mad...Read more of this...

351. Second Epistle to Robert Graham Esq. of Fintry

by Robert Burns
 LATE crippl’d of an arm, and now a leg,
About to beg a pass for leave to beg;
Dull, listless, teas’d, dejected, and deprest
(Nature is adverse to a cripple’s rest);
Will generous Graham list to his Poet’s wail?
(It soothes poor Misery, hearkening to her tale)
And hear him curse the light he first survey’d,
And doubly curse the luckless rhyming trade?


 Thou, Nature! partial...Read more of this...

The Chambermaids Second Song

by William Butler Yeats
 From pleasure of the bed,
Dull as a worm,
His rod and its butting head
Limp as a worm,
His spirit that has fled
Blind as a worm....Read more of this...

First Child ... Second Child

by Ogden Nash
 FIRST

Be it a girl, or one of the boys,
It is scarlet all over its avoirdupois,
It is red, it is boiled; could the obstetrician
Have possibly been a lobstertrician?
His degrees and credentials were hunky-dory,
But how's for an infantile inventory?
Here's the prodigy, here's the miracle!
Whether its head is oval or spherical,
You rejoice to find it has only one,
Having dreaded a two-headed daughter...Read more of this...

Seeing Off Yuan the Second on a Mission to Anxi

by Wang Wei
 Weicheng morning rain moisten light dust 
Visitor house green green willow colour new 
Urge gentleman further finish one cup alcohol 
West outside Yang Pass no friend person 


At Weicheng morning rain has dampened light dust, 
By the hostel, the willows are all fresh and green. 
I urge my friend to drink a last cup of wine, 
West of Yang...Read more of this...

241. Written in Friars' Carse Hermitage (Second Version)

by Robert Burns
 THOU whom chance may hither lead,
Be thou clad in russet weed,
Be thou deckt in silken stole,
Grave these counsels on thy soul.


 Life is but a day at most,
Sprung from night,—in darkness lost;
Hope not sunshine ev’ry hour,
Fear not clouds will always lour.


 As Youth and Love with sprightly dance,
Beneath thy morning star advance,
Pleasure with her siren air
May delude the thoughtless...Read more of this...

Fit the Second ( Hunting of the Snark )

by Lewis Carroll
 The Bellman's Speech 

The Bellman himself they all praised to the skies--
Such a carriage, such ease and such grace!
Such solemnity, too! One could see he was wise,
The moment one looked in his face! 
He had bought a large map representing the sea, 
Without the least vestige of land:
And the crew were much pleased when they found it to be
A...Read more of this...

71. Second Epistle to Davie

by Robert Burns
 AULD NEIBOUR,I’m three times doubly o’er your debtor,
For your auld-farrant, frien’ly letter;
Tho’ I maun say’t I doubt ye flatter,
 Ye speak sae fair;
For my puir, silly, rhymin clatter
 Some less maun sair.


Hale be your heart, hale be your fiddle,
Lang may your elbuck jink diddle,
To cheer you thro’ the weary widdle
 O’ war’ly cares;
Till barins’ barins kindly cuddle
 Your auld...Read more of this...

Each Second is the last

by Emily Dickinson
 Each Second is the last
Perhaps, recalls the Man
Just measuring unconsciousness
The Sea and Spar between.

To fail within a Chance --
How terribler a thing
Than perish from the Chance's list
Before the Perishing!...Read more of this...

No Second Troy

by William Butler Yeats
 Why should I blame her that she filled my days
With misery, or that she would of late
Have taught to ignorant men most violent ways,
Or hurled the little streets upon the great.
Had they but courage equal to desire?
What could have made her peaceful with a mind
That nobleness made simple as a fire,
With beauty like a tightened bow, a kind
That is...Read more of this...

Song Of A Second April

by Edna St. Vincent Millay
 April this year, not otherwise
Than April of a year ago,
Is full of whispers, full of sighs,
Of dazzling mud and dingy snow;
Hepaticas that pleased you so
Are here again, and butterflies.

There rings a hammering all day,
And shingles lie about the doors;
In orchards near and far away
The grey wood-pecker taps and bores;
The men are merry at their chores,
And children earnest at their...Read more of this...

t of the Fifth Scene in the Second Act of Athalia

by Anne Kingsmill Finch
 Enter, as in the Temple of Jerusalem,
ATHALIA, MATHAN, ABNER

[Mathan]
WHY, to our Wonder, in this Place is seen, 
Thus discompos'd, and alter'd, Juda's Queen? 
May we demand, what Terrors seize your Breast, 
Or, why your Steps are to this House addrest, 
Where your unguarded Person stands expos'd 
To secret Foes, within its Walls inclos'd? 
Can it be thought that you...Read more of this...

Second Childhood

by Robert William Service
 Some deem I'm gentle, some I'm kind:
It may be so,--I cannot say.
I know I have a simple mind
And see things in a simple way;
And like a child I love to play.

I love to toy with pretty words
And syllable them into rhyme;
To make them sing like sunny birds
In happy droves with silver chime,
In dulcet groves in summer time.

I pray, with...Read more of this...

The Second Voyage

by Rudyard Kipling
 We've sent our little Cupids all ashore --
 They were frightened, they were tired, they were cold:
Our sails of silk and purple go to store,
 And we've cut away our mast of beaten gold
  (Foul weather!)
Oh 'tis hemp and singing pine for to stand against the brine,
 But Love he is our master as of old!

The sea has...Read more of this...

Second Best

by Rupert Brooke
 Here in the dark, O heart;
Alone with the enduring Earth, and Night,
And Silence, and the warm strange smell of clover;
Clear-visioned, though it break you; far apart
From the dead best, the dear and old delight;
Throw down your dreams of immortality,
O faithful, O foolish lover!
Here's peace for you, and surety; here the one
Wisdom -- the truth! -- "All day the good...Read more of this...

Second Fig

by Edna St. Vincent Millay
 Safe upon the solid rock the ugly houses stand:
Come and see my shining palace built upon the sand!...Read more of this...

Preface To The Second Edition

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 I have taken advantage of the publication of a Second Edition 
of my translation of the Poems of Goethe (originally published in 
1853), to add to the Collection a version of the much admired classical 
Poem of Hermann and Dorothea, which was previously omitted by me 
in consequence of its length. Its universal popularity, however, 
and the fact that...Read more of this...

500. Song—Craigieburn Wood (Second Version)

by Robert Burns
 SWEET fa’s the eve on Craigieburn,
 And blythe awakes the morrow;
But a’ the pride o’ Spring’s return
 Can yield me nocht but sorrow.


I see the flowers and spreading trees,
 I hear the wild birds singing;
But what a weary wight can please,
 And Care his bosom wringing!


Fain, fain would I my griefs impart,
 Yet dare na for your anger;
But secret...Read more of this...

The Ladys Second Song

by William Butler Yeats
 What sort of man is coming
To lie between your feet?
What matter, we are but women.
Wash; make your body sweet;
I have cupboards of dried fragrance.
I can strew the sheet.
 The Lord have mercy upon us.

He shall love my soul as though
Body were not at all,
He shall love your body
Untroubled by the soul,
Love cram love's two divisions
Yet keep his substance whole.
...Read more of this...

Saltbush Bills Second Flight

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 The news came down on the Castlereagh, and went to the world at large, 
That twenty thousand travelling sheep, with Saltbush Bill in charge, 
Were drifting down from a dried-out run to ravage the Castlereagh; 
And the squatters swore when they heard the news, and wished they were well away: 
For the name and the fame of Saltbush Bill...Read more of this...

Second Childhood

by Robert William Service
 When I go on my morning walk,
 Because I'm mild,
If I be in the mood to talk
 I choose a child.
I'd rather prattle with a lass
 Of tender age
Than converse in the high-brow class
 With college sage.

I love the touch of silken hand
 That softly clings;
In old of age I understand
 Life's little things.
I love the lisp of tiny...Read more of this...

The Second Coming

by William Butler Yeats
 Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming!...Read more of this...

Photograph of My Father in His Twenty-Second Year

by Raymond Carver
 October. Here in this dank, unfamiliar kitchen 
I study my father's embarrassed young man's face. 
Sheepish grin, he holds in one hand a string 
of spiny yellow perch, in the other 
a bottle of Carlsbad Beer. 

In jeans and denim shirt, he leans 
against the front fender of a 1934 Ford. 
He would like to pose bluff and hearty...Read more of this...

The Second EPIGRAM. (On BILLINDA)

by Anne Killigrew
 WAnton Bellinda loudly does complain, 
I've chang'd my Love of late into disdain: 

Calls me unconstant, cause I now adore
The chast Marcella, that lov'd her before. 
 Sin or Dishonour, me as well may blame, 
 That I repent, or do avoid a shame....Read more of this...

The Second Oldest Story

by Dorothy Parker
 Go I must along my ways
Though my heart be ragged,
Dripping bitter through the days,
Festering, and jagged.
Smile I must at every twinge,
Kiss, to time its throbbing;
He that tears a heart to fringe
Hates the noise of sobbing.

Weep, my love, till Heaven hears;
Curse and moan and languish.
While I wash your wound with tears,
Ease aloud your anguish.
Bellow of the pit in Hell
Where you're...Read more of this...

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