Famous Nobody Poems by Famous Poets

These are examples of famous Nobody poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous nobody poems. These examples illustrate what a famous nobody poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).

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The Lion and Albert

by Marriott Edgar
 There's a famous seaside place called Blackpool,
That's noted for fresh air and fun,
And Mr and Mrs Ramsbottom
Went there with young Albert, their son.

A grand little lad was young Albert,
All dressed in his best; quite a swell
With a stick with an 'orse's 'ead 'andle,
The finest that Woolworth's could sell.

They didn't think much of the Ocean:
The waves, they were fiddlin' and...Read more of this...

Night Shift

by Sylvia Plath
 It was not a heart, beating. 
That muted boom, that clangor 
Far off, not blood in the ears 
Drumming up and fever 

To impose on the evening. 
The noise came from outside: 
A metal detonating 
Native, evidently, to 

These stilled suburbs nobody 
Startled at it, though the sound 
Shook the ground with its pounding. 
It took a root at...Read more of this...

Dream Song 105: As a kid I believed in democracy: I

by John Berryman
 As a kid I believed in democracy: I
'saw no alternative'-”teaching at The Big Place I ah
put it in practice:
we'd time for one long novel: to a vote-”
Gone with the Wind they voted: I crunched 'No'
and we sat down with War & Peace.

As a man I believed in democracy (nobody 
ever learns anything): only one lazy day
my assistant, called James...Read more of this...

The Sun kept stooping -- stooping -- low!

by Emily Dickinson
 The Sun kept stooping -- stooping -- low!
The Hills to meet him rose!
On his side, what Transaction!
On their side, what Repose!

Deeper and deeper grew the stain
Upon the window pane --
Thicker and thicker stood the feet
Until the Tyrian

Was crowded dense with Armies --
So gay, so Brigadier --
That I felt martial stirrings
Who once the Cockade wore --

Charged from my chimney corner...Read more of this...

Eddis Service

by Rudyard Kipling
 Eddi, priest of St. Wilfrid
 In his chapel at Manhood End,
Ordered a midnight service
 For such as cared to attend.

But the Saxons were keeping Christmas,
 And the night was stormy as well.
Nobody came to service,
 Though Eddi rang the bell.

"'Wicked weather for walking,"
 Said Eddi of Manhood End.
"But I must go on with the service
 For such as care...Read more of this...

At The Executed Murderers Grave

by James Wright
 for J.L.D.

Why should we do this? What good is it to us? Above all,
how can we do such a thing? How can it possibly be done?

 --Freud

1.
My name is James A. Wright, and I was born
Twenty-five miles from this infected grave,
In Martins Ferry, Ohio, where one slave
To Hazel-Atlas Glass became my father.
He tried to teach me kindness. I return
Only...Read more of this...

I'm nobody! Who are you?

by Emily Dickinson
I'm nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there's a pair of us -- don't tell!
They'd advertise -- you know!

How dreary to be somebody!
How public like a frog
To tell one's name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!...Read more of this...

The Two Songs

by William Blake
 I heard an Angel Singing
When the day was springing:
"Mercy, pity, and peace,
Are the world's release."

So he sang all day
Over the new-mown hay,
Till the sun went down,
And the haycocks looked brown.

I heard a devil curse
Over the heath and the furse:
"Mercy vould be no more
If there were nobody poor,
And pity no more could be
If all were happy as ye:
And mutual fear...Read more of this...

somewhere

by Edward Estlin (E E) Cummings
somewhere i have never traveled,gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose

or if your wish be to close me,i...Read more of this...

There was an Old Man who said Well!

by Edward Lear
There was an Old Man who said, "Well!Will nobody answer this bell?I have pulled day and night, till my hair has grown white,But nobody answers this bell!" ...Read more of this...

Put Off the Wedding Five Times and Nobody Comes to It

by Carl Sandburg
 (Handbook for Quarreling Lovers)I THOUGHT of offering you apothegms.
I might have said, “Dogs bark and the wind carries it away.”
I might have said, “He who would make a door of gold must knock a nail in every day.”
So easy, so easy it would have been to inaugurate a high impetuous moment for you to look on before the final...Read more of this...

Before The Flood

by W S Merwin
 Why did he promise me
that we would build ourselves
an ark all by ourselves
out in back of the house
on New York Avenue
in Union City New Jersey
to the singing of the streetcars
after the story
of Noah whom nobody
believed about the waters
that would rise over everything
when I told my father
I wanted us to build
an ark of our own there
in the back yard under
the...Read more of this...

the watchers

by Rg Gregory
 against their beliefs a blue spot came slowly
out of the green

nobody expected such a thing to occur
on a thursday

the watchers switched over from their electronic
eye to their notes

the evidence undeniably placed thursday as the day
of the pink circle

they recorded having seen another pink circle
in a strange light

which had (explainably) created the illusion of
being a blue spot

(blue from green on...Read more of this...

The Vulgar Little Lady

by Ann Taylor
 "But, mamma, now, " said Charlotte, "pray, don't you believe
That I'm better than Jenny, my nurse? 
Only see my red shoes, and the lace on my sleeve;
Her clothes are a thousand times worse.

"I ride in my coach, and have nothing to do,
And the country folks stare at me so;
And nobody dares to control me but you
Because I'm a lady,...Read more of this...

Frist Poem

by Peter Orlovsky
 A rainbow comes pouring into my window, I am electrified. 
Songs burst from my breast, all my crying stops, mistory fills 
 the air. 
I look for my shues under my bed. 
A fat colored woman becomes my mother. 
I have no false teeth yet. Suddenly ten children sit on my lap. 
I grow a beard in one day....Read more of this...

An Answer to Frances Cornford

by G K Chesterton
 Why do you rush through the fields in trains, 
Guessing so much and so much. 
Why do you flash through the flowery meads, 
Fat-head poet that nobody reads; 
And why do you know such a frightful lot 
About people in gloves and such?...Read more of this...

Youth and Art

by Robert Browning
 1 It once might have been, once only:
2 We lodged in a street together,
3 You, a sparrow on the housetop lonely,
4 I, a lone she-bird of his feather.

5 Your trade was with sticks and clay,
6 You thumbed, thrust, patted and polished,
7 Then laughed 'They will see some day
8 Smith made, and Gibson demolished.'

9 My business was song, song, song;
10...Read more of this...

Pedlar

by Robert William Service
 Pedlar's coming down the street,
Housewives beat a swift retreat.
Don't you answer to the bell;
Heedless what she has to sell.
Just discreetly go inside.
We must hang a board, I fear:
PEDLARS NOT PERMITTED HERE.

I'm trying to sell what nobody wants to buy;
They turn me away, but still I try and try.
My arms are aching and my feet are sore;
Heartsick and worn I...Read more of this...

Manitoba Childe Roland

by Carl Sandburg
 LAST night a January wind was ripping at the shingles over our house and whistling a wolf
song under the eaves.

I sat in a leather rocker and read to a six-year-old girl the Browning poem, Childe
Roland to the Dark Tower Came.

And her eyes had the haze of autumn hills and it was beautiful to her and she could not
understand.

A man...Read more of this...

Tenderness

by Lisa Zaran
 All around me, the sky with its deep shade of dark. 
The stars. 

The moon with its shrunken soul. 
Can I become what I want to become? 

Neither wife or mother. 
I am noone and nobody is my lover. 

I am afraid 
that when I go mad, 
my father will bow his downy head 
into his silver wings and...Read more of this...

Nobody knows this little Rose

by Emily Dickinson
 Nobody knows this little Rose --
It might a pilgrim be
Did I not take it from the ways
And lift it up to thee.
Only a Bee will miss it --
Only a Butterfly,
Hastening from far journey --
On its breast to lie --
Only a Bird will wonder --
Only a Breeze will sigh --
Ah Little Rose -- how easy
For such as thee to die!...Read more of this...

The House with Nobody in It

by Joyce Kilmer
 Whenever I walk to Suffern along the Erie track
I go by a poor old farmhouse with its shingles broken and black.
I suppose I've passed it a hundred times, but I always stop for 
a minute
And look at the house, the tragic house, the house with nobody in 
it.
I never have seen a haunted house, but I hear there 
are...Read more of this...

Safety-Clutch

by Ambrose Bierce
 Once I seen a human ruin
In a elevator-well.
And his members was bestrewin'
All the place where he had fell.

And I says, apostrophisin'
That uncommon woful wreck:
"Your position's so surprisin'
That I tremble for your neck!"

Then that ruin, smilin' sadly
And impressive, up and spoke:
"Well, I wouldn't tremble badly,
For it's been a fortnight broke."

Then, for further comprehension 
Of his attitude, he begs
I will focus...Read more of this...

Just Keep Quiet and Nobody Will Notice

by Ogden Nash
 There is one thing that ought to be taught in all the colleges,
Which is that people ought to be taught not to go around always making apologies.
I don't mean the kind of apologies people make when they run over you or borrow five dollars or step on your feet,
Because I think that is sort of sweet;
No, I object to...Read more of this...

Goalkeeper Joe

by Marriott Edgar
 Joe Dunn were a bobby for football 
He gave all his time to that sport, 
He played for the West Wigan Whippets, 
On days when they turned out one short. 

He’d been member of club for three seasons 
And had grumbled again and again, 
Cos he found only time that they’d used him, 
Were when it were pouring with...Read more of this...

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