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Famous Nilly Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Paterson, Andrew Barton
...t's enough to make any man nervous. 

Does he think he'll be waked in the dead of night 
From Melbourne to go willy-nilly, 
To live in the Federal Capital site 
At Tumut or Wagra-go-billy? 
Well, the Melbournites may let the Capital go 
(Here we wink with one eye, please observe us!) 
But not in a hurry! By no means! Oh, no! 
He has not the least need to be nervous!...Read more of this...



by Carman, Bliss
...ill; 


It shakes my lovely manikins on the wall; 
Squall after squall, 
Gust upon crowding gust, 
It sweeps them willy nilly like blown dust 
With glory or lust. 


It is the world-ghost, the time-spirit, come 
None knows wherefrom, 
The viewless draughty tide 
And wash of being. I hear it yaw and glide, 
And then subside, 


Along these ghostly corridors and halls 
Like faint footfalls; 
The hangings stir in the air; 
And when I start and challenge, "Who goes there?...Read more of this...

by von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang
...join in the chorus with me:
"Vain 'tis to wait till the dolt grows less silly!
Play then the fool with the fool, willy-nilly,--

Children of wisdom,--remember the word!"

Merlin the old, from his glittering grave,
When I, a stripling, once spoke to him,--gave

Just the same answer as that I've preferr'd;
"Vain 'tis to wait till the dolt grows less silly!
Play then the fool with the fool, willy-nilly,--

Children of wisdom,--remember the word!"

And on the Indian breeze as it...Read more of this...

by Gregory, Rg
...om the heart
  x comes up in the middle of himself

  in this way the game is over before
  it began and everyone willy-nilly

  has had to go home
  before he could put a foot outside


(d) enough! – or too much

   reading popa
   i let fly
   too many words

   i bang away
   at the seed
   but can’t break it

   hurt i turn to
   constructing
   castles with cards

   if you can’t split
   the atom
   man stop writing...Read more of this...

by Sandburg, Carl
...mpty land—and blows one last wonder-cry.

And as the shuttling automatic memory of man clicks off its results willy-nilly and 
inevitable as the snick of a mouse-trap or the trajectory of a 42-centimeter projectile,

I flash to the form of a man to his hips in snow drifts of Manitoba and Minnesota—in the 
sled derby run from Winnipeg to Minneapolis.

He is beaten in the race the first day out of Winnipeg—the lead dog is eaten by four team 
mates—and the man goes on an...Read more of this...



by Williams, William Carlos (WCW)
...> I sit
examining my red handful. Balancing 
—this—in and out—agh. 

Love you? It's 
a fire in the blood, willy-nilly! 
It's the sun coming up in the morning.
Ha, but it's the grey moon too, already up
in the morning. You are slow. 
Men are not friends where it concerns 
a woman? Fighters. Playfellows. 
White round thighs! Youth! Sighs—! 
It's the fillip of novelty. It's— 

Mountains. Elephants humping along
against the sky—indifferent to 
...Read more of this...

by Khayyam, Omar
...e like Water and like Wind I go." 

XXXI.
Into this Universe, and Why not knowing,
Nor Whence, like Water willy-nilly flowing:
And out of it, as Wind along the Waste,
I know not Whither, willy-nilly blowing. 

XXXII.
Up from Earth's Centre through the Seventh Gate
I rose, and on the Throne of Saturn sate,
And many Knots unravel'd by the Road;
But not the Master-Knot of Human Fate. 

XXXIII.
There was the Door to which I found no Key:
There was the Veil...Read more of this...

by Fitzgerald, Edward
..."I came like Water, and like Wind I go."

29

Into this Universe, and why not knowing,
Nor whence, like Water willy-nilly flowing:
And out of it, as Wind along the Waste,
I know not whither, willy-nilly blowing.

30

What, without asking, hither hurried whence?
And, without asking, whither hurried hence!
Another and another Cup to drown
The Memory of this Impertinence!

31

Up from Earth's Centre through the Seventh Gate
I rose, and on the Throne of Saturn sate,
And m...Read more of this...

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