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Famous Nanny Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Goose, Mother
...Little Nanny EtticoatIn a white petticoat,And a red nose;The longer she standsThe shorter she grows. ...Read more of this...



by Milne, Alan Alexander (A A)
...eat big curtain,
Someone lives behind it, but I don't know who;
I think it is a Brownie, but I'm not quite certain.
(Nanny isn't certain, too.)

I looked behind the curtain, but he went so quickly -
Brownies never wait to say, "How do you do?"
They wriggle off at once because they're all so tickly
(Nanny says they're tickly too.)...Read more of this...

by Finch, Annie
...ows the waves haven't opened,
where night is reflected through decades of glass.
There is the nursery, there is the nanny,
there are my father’s unreachable eyes
turned towards the window. Is the child uneasy?
His is the death that is circling the stars.

In the deep room where candles burn soundlessly
and peace pours at last through the cells of our bodies,
three of us are watching, one of us is staring
with the wide gaze of a wild, wave-fed seal.
Incense and...Read more of this...

by Kizer, Carolyn
...ite and bare

arms that were lovely Helen's, in whose name
Greek slaughtered Trojan. Helen was to blame.

Scape-nanny call her; wars for turf
and profit don't sound glamorous enough.

Mythologize your women! None escape.
Europe was named from an act of bestial rape:

Eponymous girl on bull-back, he intent
on scattering sperm across a continent.

Old Zeus refused to take the rap.
It's not his name in big print on the map.

But let's go back to the b...Read more of this...

by Riley, James Whitcomb
...daisy!
All the childern round the place
 Is ist a-runnin' crazy!
Fetched a cake fer little Jake,
 And fetched a pie fer Nanny,
And fetched a pear fer all the pack
 That runs to kiss their Granny!


Lucy Ellen's in her lap,
 And Wade and Silas Walker
Both's a-ridin' on her foot,
 And 'Pollos on the rocker;
And Marthy's twins, from Aunt Marinn's,
 And little Orphant Annie,
All's a-eatin' gingerbread
 And giggle-un at Granny!


Tells us all the fairy tales
 Ever thought er wunde...Read more of this...



by Goose, Mother
...R>Poor old Robinson Crusoe!Poor old Robinson Crusoe!   They made him a coat   Of an old Nanny goat.I wonder why they should do so!   With a ring-a-ting-tang,   And a ring-a-ting-tang,Poor old Robinson Crusoe!...Read more of this...

by Sandburg, Carl
...y away all, the head, the
feet, the hands, all: I know there is something left
over they can not put away.

Let the nanny goats and the billy goats of the shanty
people eat the clover over my grave and if any yellow
hair or any blue smoke of flowers is good enough to grow
over me let the dirty-fisted children of the shanty
people pick these flowers.

I have had my chance to live with the people who have
too much and the people who have too little and I chose
one of th...Read more of this...

by Walcott, Derek
...oral voice, 
a wind that blew all without bending anything, 
neither the leaves of the album nor the lime groves; 
blew Nanny floating back in white from a feather 
to a chimerical, chemical pin speck that shrank 
the drinking Herefords to brown porcelain cows 
on a mantelpiece, Trelawny trembling with dusk, 
the scorched pastures of the old benign Custos; blew 
far the decent servants and the lifelong cook, 
and shriveled to a shard that ancient pastoral 
of dusk in a gilt-e...Read more of this...

by Miller, Alice Duer
...ur head upon your bed. 
You will be left with only the worn dead story 
 You told yourself of the dead. 

XLII 
Nanny brought up my son, as his father before him, 
Austere on questions of habits, manners, and food. 
Nobly yielding a mother's right to adore him, 
Thinking that mothers never did sons much good. 
A Scot from Lady Jean's own native passes, 
With a head as smooth and round as a silver bowl, 
A crooked nose, and eyes behind her glasses 
Grey and bri...Read more of this...

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Book: Shattered Sighs