Famous Rattle On Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Be Glad Your Nose is on Your Face

by Jack Prelutsky
 Be glad your nose is on your face,
not pasted on some other place,
for if it were where it is not,
you might dislike your nose a lot.

Imagine if your precious nose
were sandwiched in between your toes,
that clearly would not be a treat,
for you'd be forced to smell your feet.

Your nose would be a source of dread
were it attached atop your...Read more of this...

Jaloppy Joy

by Robert William Service
 Past ash cans and alley cats,
Fetid. overflowing gutters,
Leprous lines of rancid flats
Where the frowsy linen flutters;
With a rattle and a jar,
hark! I sing a happy ditty,
As I speed my Master far
From the poison of the City.

Speed him to the sportive sea,
Watch him walloping the briny,
Light his pipe and brew his tea
In a little wood that's piny;
Haven him to peace...Read more of this...

The Macaronis

by Robert William Service
 Italian people peaceful are,--
 Let it be to their credit.
They mostly fail to win a war,
 --Oh they themselves have said it.
"Allergic we to lethal guns
 And military might:
We love our homes and little ones,
 And loath to fight."

But Teutons are a warrior race
 Who seek the sword to rattle;
And in the sun they claim a place,
 Even at...Read more of this...

The Place Where The Rainbow Ends

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
There's a fabulous story
Full of splendor and glory,
That Arabian legends transcends;
Of the wealth without measure,
The coffers of treasure,
At the place where the rainbow ends.
Oh, many have sought it,
And all would have bought it,
With the blood we so recklessly spend;
But none has uncovered,
The gold, nor discovered
The spot at the rainbow's end.
They have sought it in battle,
And e'en where the rattle
Of dice...Read more of this...

Hans Sachs Poetical Mission

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 [I feel considerable hesitation in venturing 
to offer this version of a poem which Carlyle describes to be 'a 
beautiful piece (a very Hans Sacks beatified, both in character 
and style), which we wish there was any possibility of translating.' 
The reader will be aware that Hans Sachs was the celebrated Minstrel- 
Cobbler of Nuremberg, who Wrote 208 plays,...Read more of this...

The Fury Of Beautiful Bones

by Anne Sexton
 Sing me a thrush, bone. 
Sing me a nest of cup and pestle. 
Sing me a sweetbread fr an old grandfather. 
Sing me a foot and a doorknob, for you are my love. 
Oh sing, bone bag man, sing. 
Your head is what I remember that Augusty 
you were in love with another woman but 
taht didn't matter. I...Read more of this...

Where Shall the Lover Rest

by Sir Walter Scott
 Where shall the lover rest 
Whom the fates sever 
From the true maiden's breast, 
Parted for ever?-- 
Where, through groves deep and high, 
Sounds the fair billow, 
Where early violets die, 
Under the willow.

Chorus.

Soft shall be his pillow.

There, through the summer day, 
Cool streams are laving; 
There, while the tempests sway, 
Scarce are boughs waving; 
There, thy rest shall...Read more of this...

To Urania To I.K

by Joseph Brodsky
Everything has its limit including sorrow.
A windowpane stalls a stare. Nor does a grill abandon
a leaf. One may rattle the keys gurgle down a swallow.
Loneless cubes a man at random.
A camel sniffs at the rail with a resentful nostril;
a perspective cuts emptiness deep and even.
And what is space anyway if not the
body's absence at every given
point? That's why Urania's older...Read more of this...

The Battle of Culloden

by William Topaz McGonagall
 'Twas in the year of 1746, and in April the 14th day,
That Prince Charles Stuart and his army marched on without delay,
And on the 14th of April they encamped on Culloden Moor,
But the army felt hungry, and no food could they procure. 

And the calls of hunger could not brook delay,
So they resolved to have food, come what may;
They,...Read more of this...

In the Matter of One Compass

by Rudyard Kipling
 When, foot to wheel and back to wind,
The helmsman dare not look behind,
But hears beyond his compass-light,
The blind bow thunder through the night,
And, like a harpstring ere it snaps,
The rigging sing beneath the caps;
 Above the shriek of storm in sail
 Or rattle of the blocks blown free,
 Set for the peace beyond the gale,
 This song the Needle...Read more of this...

The Field of Glory

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 War shook the land where Levi dwelt, 
And fired the dismal wrath he felt, 
That such a doom was ever wrought 
As his, to toil while others fought; 
To toil, to dream -- and still to dream, 
With one day barren as another; 
To consummate, as it would seem 
The dry despair of his old mother. 

Far off one...Read more of this...

A Grammarians Funeral

by Robert Browning
 SHORTLY AFTER THE REVIVAL OF
LEARNING IN EUROPE.

Let us begin and carry up this corpse,
Singing together.
Leave we the common crofts, the vulgar thorpes
Each in its tether
Sleeping safe on the bosom of the plain,
Cared-for till cock-crow:
Look out if yonder be not day again
Rimming the rock-row!
That's the appropriate country; there, man's thought,
Rarer, intenser,
Self-gathered for an outbreak, as it ought,
Chafes in the censer.
Leave...Read more of this...

To a Certain Civilian

by Walt Whitman
 DID you ask dulcet rhymes from me? 
Did you seek the civilian’s peaceful and languishing rhymes? 
Did you find what I sang erewhile so hard to follow? 
Why I was not singing erewhile for you to follow, to understand—nor am I now; 
(I have been born of the same as the war was born;
The drum-corps’ harsh rattle is to...Read more of this...

I could die -- to know --

by Emily Dickinson
 I could die -- to know --
'Tis a trifling knowledge --
News-Boys salute the Door --
Carts -- joggle by --
Morning's bold face -- stares in the window --
Were but mine -- the Charter of the least Fly --

Houses hunch the House
With their Brick Shoulders --
Coals -- from a Rolling Load -- rattle -- how -- near --
To the very Square...Read more of this...

Vanitas! Vanitatum Vanitas!

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 MY trust in nothing now is placed,

Hurrah!
So in the world true joy I taste,

Hurrah!
Then he who would be a comrade of mine
Must rattle his glass, and in chorus combine,
Over these dregs of wine.

I placed my trust in gold and wealth,

Hurrah!
But then I lost all joy and health,

Lack-a-day!
Both here and there the money roll'd,
And when I had it here, behold,
From...Read more of this...

The Gift

by David Lehman
 "He gave her class. She gave him sex." 
 -- Katharine Hepburn on Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers 

He gave her money. She gave him head. 
He gave her tips on "aggressive growth" mutual funds. She gave him a red rose 
 and a little statue of eros. 
He gave her Genesis 2 (21-23). She gave him Genesis 1...Read more of this...

The Geebung Polo Club

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 It was somewhere up the country, in a land of rock and scrub, 
That they formed an institution called the Geebung Polo Club. 
They were long and wiry natives from the rugged mountain side, 
And the horse was never saddled that the Geebungs couldn't ride; 
But their style of playing polo was irregular and rash -- 
They had mighty...Read more of this...

Since Then

by Henry Lawson
 I met Jack Ellis in town to-day -- 
Jack Ellis -- my old mate, Jack -- 
Ten years ago, from the Castlereagh, 
We carried our swags together away 
To the Never-Again, Out Back. 

But times have altered since those old days, 
And the times have changed the men. 
Ah, well! there's little to blame or praise -- 
Jack Ellis...Read more of this...

Anthem For Doomed Youth

by Wilfred Owen
 What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
 Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
 Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries for them; no prayers nor bells,
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, --
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

What candles may be held to...Read more of this...

A Working Party

by Siegfried Sassoon
 Three hours ago he blundered up the trench, 
Sliding and poising, groping with his boots; 
Sometimes he tripped and lurched against the walls 
With hands that pawed the sodden bags of chalk. 
He couldn't see the man who walked in front; 
Only he heard the drum and rattle of feet 
Stepping along barred trench boards, often splashing 
Wretchedly where...Read more of this...

Bixbys Landing

by Robinson Jeffers
 They burned lime on the hill and dropped it down
 here in an iron car
On a long cable; here the ships warped in
And took their loads from the engine, the water
 is deep to the cliff. The car
Hangs half way over in the gape of the gorge,
Stationed like a north star above the peaks of
 the redwoods, iron perch
For...Read more of this...

The Convert

by G K Chesterton
 After one moment when I bowed my head 
And the whole world turned over and came upright, 
And I came out where the old road shone white, 
I walked the ways and heard what all men said, 
Forests of tongues, like autumn leaves unshed, 
Being not unlovable but strange and light; 
Old riddles and new creeds, not in despite...Read more of this...

The Santa-Fe Trail (A Humoresque)

by Vachel Lindsay
 I asked the old *****, "What is that bird that sings so well?" He answered: "That is the Rachel-Jane." "Hasn't it another name, lark, or thrush, or the like?" "No. Jus' Rachel-Jane."


I. IN WHICH A RACING AUTO COMES FROM THE EAST

This is the order of the music of the morning: —
First, from the far East comes but a crooning.
The...Read more of this...

Lovers Gifts XLII: Are You a Mere Picture

by Rabindranath Tagore
 Are you a mere picture, and not as true as those stars, true as
this dust? They throb with the pulse of things, but you are
immensely aloof in your stillness, painted form.
The day was when you walked with me, your breath warm, your
limbs singing of life. My world found its speech in your voice, and
touched my heart with your face....Read more of this...

The Veteran

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
Underneath the autumn sky,
Haltingly, the lines go by.
Ah, would steps were blithe and gay,
As when first they marched away,
Smile on lip and curl on brow,—
Only white-faced gray-beards now,
Standing on life's outer verge,
E'en the marches sound a dirge.[Pg 257]
Blow, you bugles, play, you fife,
Rattle, drums, for dearest life.
Let the flags wave freely so,
As the marching legions go,
Shout, hurrah and...Read more of this...

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