Famous Old Timers Poems by Famous Poets

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

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New England Magazine

by Ellis Parker Butler
 Upon Bottle Miche the autre day
While yet the nuit was early,
Je met a homme whose barbe was grey,
Whose cheveaux long and curly.

“Je am a poete, sir,” dit he,
“Je live where tres grande want teems—
I’m faim, sir. Sil vous plait give me
Un franc or cinquatite centimes.”

I donne him vingt big copper sous
But dit, “You moderne rhymers
The sacre poet name abuse—
Les...Read more of this...

On Boot Hill

by Badger Clark
  Up from the prairie and through the pines,
  Over your straggling headboard lines
    Winds of the West go by.
  You must love them, you booted dead,
  More than the dreamers who died in bed--
  You old-timers who took your lead
    Under the open sky!

  Leathery knights of...Read more of this...

The Old Timers Steeplechase

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 The sheep were shorn and the wool went down 
At the time of our local racing; 
And I'd earned a spell -- I was burnt and brown -- 
So I rolled my swag for a trip to town 
And a look at the steeplechasing. 
Twas rough and ready--an uncleared course 
As rough as the blacks had found it; 
With...Read more of this...

Old Timers

by Carl Sandburg
 I AM an ancient reluctant conscript.

On the soup wagons of Xerxes I was a cleaner of pans.

On the march of Miltiades’ phalanx I had a haft and head;
I had a bristling gleaming spear-handle.

Red-headed Cæsar picked me for a teamster.
He said, “Go to work, you Tuscan bastard,
Rome calls for a man who can drive horses.”

The units of conquest led by...Read more of this...

Waking in the Blue

by Robert Lowell
 The night attendant, a B.U. sophomore,
rouses from the mare's-nest of his drowsy head
propped on The Meaning of Meaning.
He catwalks down our corridor.
Azure day
makes my agonized blue window bleaker.
Crows maunder on the petrified fairway.
Absence! My hearts grows tense
as though a harpoon were sparring for the kill.
(This is the house for the "mentally ill.")

What use is my sense of humour?
I grin...Read more of this...

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