Famous No Chance Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous No Chance poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous no chance poems. These examples illustrate what a famous no chance poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Francesco Petrarch
[Pg 225] SONNET CCXXIII. Qual donna attende a gloriosa fama. THE EYES OF LAURA ARE THE SCHOOL OF VIRTUE. Feels any fair the glorious wish to gainOf sense, of worth, of courtesy, the praise?On those bright eyes attentive let her gazeOf her miscall'd my love, but sure my foe.Read more of this...
by
Henry Lawson
They stood by the door of the Inn on the Rise;
May Carney looked up in the bushranger's eyes:
`Oh! why did you come? -- it was mad of you, Jack;
You know that the troopers are out on your track.'
A laugh and a shake of his obstinate head --
`I wanted a dance, and I'll chance it,'...Read more of this...
by
Donald Justice
Our lives avoided tragedy
Simply by going on and on,
Without end and with little apparent meaning.
Oh, there were storms and small catastrophes.
Simply by going on and on
We managed. No need for the heroic.
Oh, there were storms and small catastrophes.
I don't remember all the particulars.
We managed. No need for the heroic.
There were the usual celebrations, the usual sorrows.
I don't remember all...Read more of this...
by
Emily Dickinson
Not probable -- The barest Chance --
A smile too few -- a word too much
And far from Heaven as the Rest --
The Soul so close on Paradise --
What if the Bird from journey far --
Confused by Sweets -- as Mortals -- are --
Forget the secret of His wing
And perish -- but a Bough between --
Oh, Groping feet --
Oh Phantom...Read more of this...
by
Rudyard Kipling
I know not in Whose hands are laid
To empty upon earth
From unsuspected ambuscade
The very Urns of Mirth;
Who bids the Heavenly Lark arise
And cheer our solemn round--
The Jest beheld with streaming eyes
And grovellings on the ground;
Who joins the flats of Time and Chance
Behind the prey preferred,
And thrones on Shrieking Circumstance
The Sacredly Absurd,
Till Laughter, voiceless...Read more of this...
by
Conrad Aiken
In the mazes of loitering people, the watchful and furtive,
The shadows of tree-trunks and shadows of leaves,
In the drowse of the sunlight, among the low voices,
I suddenly face you,
Your dark eyes return for a space from her who is with you,
They shine into mine with a sunlit desire,
They say an 'I love...Read more of this...
by
James A Emanuel
EVERYTHING is jazz:
snails, jails, rails, tails, males, females,
snow-white cotton bales.
Knee-bone, thigh, hip-bone.
Jazz slips you percussion bone
classified "unknown."
Slick lizard rhythms,
cigar-smoke tunes, straight-gin sky
laced with double moons.
Second-chance rhythms,
don't-give-up riffs: jazz gets HIGH
off can'ts, buts, and ifs....Read more of this...
by
Horace
See, how it stands, one pile of snow,
Soracte! 'neath the pressure yield
Its groaning woods; the torrents' flow
With clear sharp ice is all congeal'd.
Heap high the logs, and melt the cold,
...Read more of this...
by
Anne Kingsmill Finch
Good Heav'n, I thank thee, since it was design'd
I shou'd be fram'd, but of the weaker kinde,
That yet, my Soul, is rescu'd from the Love
Of all those Trifles, which their Passions move.
Pleasures, and Praise, and Plenty haue with me
But their just value. If allow'd they be,
Freely, and thankfully as much I tast,
As will not reason, or Religion wast.
If...Read more of this...
by
Andrew Barton Paterson
Oh, some folk think vice-royalty is festive and hilarious,
The duties of an A.D.C. are manifold and various,
So listen, whilst I tell in song
The duties of an aide-de-cong.
Whatsoever betide
To the Governor's side
We must stick -- or the public would eat him --
For each bounder we see
Says, "Just introduce me
To His Lordship...Read more of this...
by
Andrew Barton Paterson
As I pondered very weary o'er a volume long and dreary --
For the plot was void of interest; 'twas the Postal Guide, in fact --
There I learnt the true location, distance, size and population
Of each township, town, and village in the radius of the Act.
And I learnt that Puckawidgee stands beside the Murrumbidgee,
And the...Read more of this...
by
Joyce Kilmer
(For Aline)
Now by what whim of wanton chance
Do radiant eyes know sombre days?
And feet that shod in light should dance
Walk weary and laborious ways?
But rays from Heaven, white and whole,
May penetrate the gloom of earth;
And tears but nourish, in your soul,
The glory of celestial mirth.
The darts of toil and sorrow, sent
Against your peaceful beauty, are
As foolish and as impotent
As...Read more of this...
by
Edmund Spenser
FAyre ye be sure, but cruell and vnkind,
As is a Tygre that with greedinesse
hunts after bloud, when he by chance doth find
a feeble beast, doth felly him oppresse.
Fayre be ye sure but proud and pittilesse,
as is a storme, that all things doth prostrate:
finding a tree alone all comfortlesse,
beats on it strongly it to ruinate.
Fayre be ye sure, but hard...Read more of this...
by
Rudyard Kipling
We have another viceroy now, -- those days are dead and done
Of Delilah Aberyswith and depraved Ulysses Gunne.
Delilah Aberyswith was a lady -- not too young --
With a perfect taste in dresses and a badly-bitted tongue,
With a thirst for information, and a greater thirst for praise,
And a little house in Simla in the Prehistoric Days.
By reason of her marriage...Read more of this...
by
Rudyard Kipling
The strength of twice three thousand horse
That seeks the single goal;
The line that holds the rending course,
The hate that swings the whole;
The stripped hulls, slinking through the gloom,
At gaze and gone again --
The Brides of Death that wait the groom --
The Choosers of the Slain!
Offshore where sea and skyline blend
In rain, the daylight dies;
The...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
I'll wait until my money's gone
Before I take the sleeping pills;
Then when they find me in the dawn,
Remote from earthly ails and ills
They'll say: "She's broke, the foreign *****!"
And dump me in the common ditch.
So thought I, of all hope bereft,
And by my evil fate obsessed;
A thousand franks was all I'd left
Of that fair fortune I possessed.
...I throw it...Read more of this...
by
Edward Thomas
IF I should ever by chance grow rich
I'll buy Codham, Cockridden, and Childerditch,
Roses, Pyrgo, and Lapwater,
And let them all to my eldest daughter.
The rent I shall ask of her will be only
Each year's first violets, white and lonely,
The first primroses and orchises--
She must find them before I do, that is.
But if...Read more of this...
by
A E Housman
If by chance your eye offend you,
Pluck it out, lad, and be sound:
'Twill hurt, but here are salves to friend you,
And many a balsam grows on ground.
And if your hand or foot offend you,
Cut it off, lad, and be whole;
But play the man, stand up and end you,
When your sickness is your...Read more of this...
by
William Topaz McGonagall
Ye sons of Mars, come join with me,
And sing in praise of Sir Herbert Stewart's little army,
That made ten thousand Arabs flee
At the charge of the bayonet at Abu Klea.
General Stewart's force was about fifteen hundred all told,
A brave little band, but, like lions bold,
They fought under their brave and heroic commander,
As gallant and as skilful as the...Read more of this...
by
Percy Bysshe Shelley
The awful shadow of some unseen Power
Floats through unseen among us, -- visiting
This various world with as inconstant wing
As summer winds that creep from flower to flower, --
Like moonbeams that behind some piny mountain shower,
It visits with inconstant glance
Each human heart and countenance;
Like hues and harmonies of evening, --
Like clouds in starlight widely spread, --
Like memory of music fled,...Read more of this...
by
Sir Thomas Wyatt
Mine own John Poynz, since ye delight to know
The cause why that homeward I me draw,
And flee the press of courts, whereso they go,
Rather than to live thrall under the awe
Of lordly looks, wrappèd within my cloak,
To will and lust learning to set a law:
It is not for because I scorn or mock
The power of them, to whom fortune...Read more of this...
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...
by
Robert Frost
You'll wait a long, long time for anything much
To happen in heaven beyond the floats of cloud
And the Northern Lights that run like tingling nerves.
The sun and moon get crossed, but they never touch,
Nor strike out fire from each other nor crash out loud.
The planets seem to interfere in their curves
But nothing ever happens, no harm is done.
We may...Read more of this...
by
Helen Hunt Jackson
These things wondering I saw beneath the sun:
That never yet the race was to the swift,
The fight unto the mightiest to lift,
Nor favors unto men whose skill had done
Great works, nor riches ever unto one
Wise man of understanding. All is drift
Of time and chance, and none may stay or sift
Or know the...Read more of this...
by
Sidney Lanier
From cold Norse caves or buccaneer Southern seas
Oft come repenting tempests here to die;
Bewailing old-time wrecks and robberies,
They shrive to priestly pines with many a sigh,
Breathe salutary balms through lank-lock'd hair
Of sick men's heads, and soon -- this world outworn --
Sink into saintly heavens of stirless air,
Clean from confessional. One died, this morn,
And willed the world to wise Queen...Read more of this...
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