Famous Luck It Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Hard Luck

by Edgar Albert Guest
 Ain't no use as I can see
In sittin' underneath a tree 
An' growlin' that your luck is bad,
An' that your life is extry sad;
Your life ain't sadder than your neighbor's
Nor any harder are your labors;
It rains on him the same as you,
An' he has work he hates to do;
An' he gits tired an' he gits cross,
An' he has trouble...Read more of this...

Weekend Glory

by Maya Angelou
 Some clichty folks
don't know the facts,
posin' and preenin'
and puttin' on acts,
stretchin' their backs.

They move into condos
up over the ranks,
pawn their souls
to the local banks.
Buying big cars
they can't afford,
ridin' around town
actin' bored.

If they want to learn how to live life right
they ought to study me on Saturday night.

My job at the plant
ain't the biggest bet,
but I pay my bills
and stay...Read more of this...

The Call Of The Wild

by Robert William Service
 Have you gazed on naked grandeur where there's nothing else to gaze on,
 Set pieces and drop-curtain scenes galore,
Big mountains heaved to heaven, which the blinding sunsets blazon,
 Black canyons where the rapids rip and roar?
Have you swept the visioned valley with the green stream streaking through it,
 Searched the Vastness for a something you have lost?
Have you strung...Read more of this...

Juggling Jerry

by George Meredith
 Pitch here the tent, while the old horse grazes:
By the old hedge-side we'll halt a stage.
It's nigh my last above the daisies:
My next leaf'll be man's blank page.
Yes, my old girl! and it's no use crying:
Juggler, constable, king, must bow.
One that outjuggles all's been spying
Long to have me, and he has me now.

We've travelled times to this old common:
Often...Read more of this...

The Coming Of Good Luck

by Robert Herrick
 So Good-Luck came, and on my roof did light,
Like noiseless snow, or as the dew of night;
Not all at once, but gently,--as the trees
Are by the sun-beams, tickled by degrees....Read more of this...

Luck

by Charles Bukowski
 once
we were young
at this
machine. . .
drinking
smoking
typing
it was a most 
splendid
miraculous
time
still
is
only now
instead of
moving toward
time
it 
moves toward 
us
makes each word 
drill 
into the
paper
clear
fast
hard
feeding a
closing
space....Read more of this...

In the Home Stretch

by Robert Frost
 SHE stood against the kitchen sink, and looked
Over the sink out through a dusty window
At weeds the water from the sink made tall.
She wore her cape; her hat was in her hand.
Behind her was confusion in the room,
Of chairs turned upside down to sit like people
In other chairs, and something, come to look,
For every room a house has—parlor, bed-room,
And...Read more of this...

To Posterity

by Bertolt Brecht
 Indeed I live in the dark ages!
A guileless word is an absurdity. A smooth forehead betokens
A hard heart. He who laughs
Has not yet heard
The terrible tidings.

Ah, what an age it is
When to speak of trees is almost a crime
For it is a kind of silence about injustice!
And he who walks calmly across the street,
Is he not out of reach...Read more of this...

Scars on Paper

by Marilyn Hacker
 An unwrapped icon, too potent to touch,
she freed my breasts from the camp Empire dress.
Now one of them's the shadow of a breast
with a lost object's half-life, with as much
life as an anecdotal photograph:
me, Kim and Iva, all stripped to the waist,
hiking near Russian River on June first
'79: Iva's five-and-a-half.
While she was almost twenty, wearing black
T-shirts in D.C., where...Read more of this...

Oh! Mr Best Youre Very Bad

by Jane Austen
 Oh! Mr. Best, you're very bad
And all the world shall know it;
Your base behaviour shall be sung
By me, a tunefull Poet.-- 
You used to go to Harrowgate
Each summer as it came,
And why I pray should you refuse
To go this year the same?-- 

The way's as plain, the road's as smooth,
The Posting not increased;
You're scarcely stouter than you were,
Not younger...Read more of this...

Forard

by Henry Lawson
 It is stuffy in the steerage where the second-classers sleep, 
For there's near a hundred for'ard, and they're stowed away like sheep, -- 
They are trav'lers for the most part in a straight 'n' honest path; 
But their linen's rather scanty, an' there isn't any bath -- 
Stowed away like ewes and wethers that is shore 'n' marked 'n'...Read more of this...

Lovers Gifts XLVIII: I Travelled the Old Road

by Rabindranath Tagore
 I travelled the old road every day, I took my fruits to the market,
my cattle to the meadows, I ferried my boat across the stream and
all the ways were well known to me.
One morning my basket was heavy with wares. Men were busy in
the fields, the pastures crowded with cattle; the breast of earth
heaved with the mirth of ripening...Read more of this...

An Evening With John Heath-stubbs

by Barry Tebb
 Alone in Sutton with Fynbos my orange cat

A long weekend of wind and rain drowning

The tumultuous flurry of mid-February blossom

A surfeit of letters to work through, a mountain

Of files to sort, some irritation at the thought

Of travelling to Kentish Town alone when

My mind was flooded with the mellifluous voice

Of Heath-Stubbs on tape reading ‘The Divided Ways’

In memory of Sidney...Read more of this...

Hard Luck

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 I left the course, and by my side 
There walked a ruined tout -- 
A hungry creature, evil-eyed, 
Who poured this story out. 
"You see," he said, "there came a swell 
To Kensington today, 
And, if I picked the winners well, 
A crown at least he's pay. 

"I picked three winners straight, I did; 
I filled his purse with...Read more of this...

Luck is not chance --

by Emily Dickinson
 Luck is not chance --
It's Toil --
Fortune's expensive smile
Is earned --
The Father of the Mine
Is that old-fashioned Coin
We spurned --...Read more of this...

The Ballad Of The Proverbs

by Francois Villon
 So rough the goat will scratch, it cannot sleep.
So often goes the pot to the well that it breaks.
So long you heat iron, it will glow;
so heavily you hammer it, it shatters.
So good is the man as his praise;
so far he will go, and he's forgotten;
so bad he behaves, and he's despised.
So loud you cry Christmas, it comes.

So glib...Read more of this...

The Ballad Of Hard-Luck Henry

by Robert William Service
 Now wouldn't you expect to find a man an awful crank
That's staked out nigh three hundred claims, and every one a blank;
That's followed every fool stampede, and seen the rise and fall
Of camps where men got gold in chunks and he got none at all;
That's prospected a bit of ground and sold it for a song
To see it yield...Read more of this...

Love Is A Parallax

by Sylvia Plath
 'Perspective betrays with its dichotomy:
train tracks always meet, not here, but only
 in the impossible mind's eye;
horizons beat a retreat as we embark
on sophist seas to overtake that mark
 where wave pretends to drench real sky.' 

'Well then, if we agree, it is not odd
that one man's devil is another's god
 or that the solar spectrum is
a multitude of...Read more of this...

I Made A Mistake

by Charles Bukowski
 I reached up into the top of the closet
and took out a pair of blue panties
and showed them to her and
asked "are these yours?" 
and she looked and said,
"no, those belong to a dog." 
she left after that and I haven't seen
her since. she's not at her place.
I keep going there, leaving notes stuck
into the door. I go back...Read more of this...

Whether or Not

by D. H. Lawrence
I

Dunna thee tell me its his'n, mother,
      Dunna thee, dunna thee.
--Oh ay! he'll be comin' to tell thee his-sèn
      Wench, wunna he?

Tha doesna mean to say to me, mother,
      He's gone wi that--
--My gel, owt'll do for a man i' the dark,
   ...Read more of this...

Father Rileys Horse

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 'Twas the horse thief, Andy Regan, that was hunted like a dog 
By the troopers of the upper Murray side, 
They had searched in every gully -- they had looked in every log, 
But never sight or track of him they spied, 
Till the priest at Kiley's Crossing heard a knocking very late 
And a whisper "Father Riley --...Read more of this...

His Phoenix

by William Butler Yeats
 There is a queen in China, or maybe it's in Spain,
And birthdays and holidays such praises can be heard
Of her unblemished lineaments, a whiteness with no stain,
That she might be that sprightly girl trodden by a bird;
And there's a score of duchesses, surpassing womankind,
Or who have found a painter to make them so for pay
And smooth out stain and...Read more of this...

Toads

by Philip Larkin
 Why should I let the toad work
 Squat on my life?
Can't I use my wit as a pitchfork
 And drive the brute off?

Six days of the week it soils 
 With its sickening poison -
Just for paying a few bills!
 That's out of proportion.

Lots of folk live on their wits:
 Lecturers, lispers,
Losels, loblolly-men, louts-
 They don't end as paupers;

Lots...Read more of this...

325. Song—What can a Young Lassie do wi' an Auld Man?

by Robert Burns
 WHAT can a young lassie, what shall a young lassie,
 What can a young lassie do wi’ an auld man?
Bad luck on the penny that tempted my minnie
 To sell her puir Jenny for siller an’ lan’.
Bad luck on the penny that tempted my minnie
 To sell her puir Jenny for siller an’ lan’!


He’s always compleenin’ frae mornin’ to...Read more of this...

Dream Song 26: The glories of the world struck me

by John Berryman
 The glories of the world struck me, made me aria, once.
-”What happen then, Mr Bones?
if be you cares to say.
-”Henry. Henry became interested in women's bodies,
his loins were & were the scene of stupendous achievement.
Stupor. Knees, dear. Pray.

All the knobs & softnesses of, my God,
the ducking & trouble it swarm on Henry,
at one time.
-”What happen then, Mr Bones?
you seems...Read more of this...

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