Famous Second Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Second poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous second poems. These examples illustrate what a famous second poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Ellis Parker Butler
Comrades, many a year and day
Have fled since that glorious 9th of May
When we made the charge at Farmington.
But until our days on earth are done
Our blood will burn and our hearts beat fast
As we tell of the glorious moments we passed,
When we rode on the guns with a mighty shout
And saved...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
Some deem I'm gentle, some I'm kind:
It may be so,--I cannot say.
I know I have a simple mind
And see things in a simple way;
And like a child I love to play.
I love to toy with pretty words
And syllable them into rhyme;
To make them sing like sunny birds
In happy droves with silver chime,
In dulcet groves in summer time.
I pray, with...Read more of this...
by
William Butler Yeats
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming!...Read more of this...
by
Robert Burns
THOU whom chance may hither lead,
Be thou clad in russet weed,
Be thou deckt in silken stole,
Grave these counsels on thy soul.
Life is but a day at most,
Sprung from night,—in darkness lost;
Hope not sunshine ev’ry hour,
Fear not clouds will always lour.
As Youth and Love with sprightly dance,
Beneath thy morning star advance,
Pleasure with her siren air
May delude the thoughtless...Read more of this...
by
Anne Killigrew
WAnton Bellinda loudly does complain,
I've chang'd my Love of late into disdain:
Calls me unconstant, cause I now adore
The chast Marcella, that lov'd her before.
Sin or Dishonour, me as well may blame,
That I repent, or do avoid a shame....Read more of this...
by
Lewis Carroll
The Bellman's Speech
The Bellman himself they all praised to the skies--
Such a carriage, such ease and such grace!
Such solemnity, too! One could see he was wise,
The moment one looked in his face!
He had bought a large map representing the sea,
Without the least vestige of land:
And the crew were much pleased when they found it to be
A...Read more of this...
by
Robert Burns
AULD NEIBOUR,I’m three times doubly o’er your debtor,
For your auld-farrant, frien’ly letter;
Tho’ I maun say’t I doubt ye flatter,
Ye speak sae fair;
For my puir, silly, rhymin clatter
Some less maun sair.
Hale be your heart, hale be your fiddle,
Lang may your elbuck jink diddle,
To cheer you thro’ the weary widdle
O’ war’ly cares;
Till barins’ barins kindly cuddle
Your auld...Read more of this...
by
Ogden Nash
FIRST
Be it a girl, or one of the boys,
It is scarlet all over its avoirdupois,
It is red, it is boiled; could the obstetrician
Have possibly been a lobstertrician?
His degrees and credentials were hunky-dory,
But how's for an infantile inventory?
Here's the prodigy, here's the miracle!
Whether its head is oval or spherical,
You rejoice to find it has only one,
Having dreaded a two-headed daughter...Read more of this...
by
Robert William Service
When I go on my morning walk,
Because I'm mild,
If I be in the mood to talk
I choose a child.
I'd rather prattle with a lass
Of tender age
Than converse in the high-brow class
With college sage.
I love the touch of silken hand
That softly clings;
In old of age I understand
Life's little things.
I love the lisp of tiny...Read more of this...
by
Rainer Maria Rilke
Every angel is terrifying. And yet alas
I invoked you almost deadly birds of the soul
knowing about you. Where are the days of Tobias
when one of you veiling his radiance stood at the front door
slightly disguised for the journey no longer appalling;
(a young man like the one who curiously peeked through the window).
But if the archangel now perilous from...Read more of this...
by
Dorothy Parker
Go I must along my ways
Though my heart be ragged,
Dripping bitter through the days,
Festering, and jagged.
Smile I must at every twinge,
Kiss, to time its throbbing;
He that tears a heart to fringe
Hates the noise of sobbing.
Weep, my love, till Heaven hears;
Curse and moan and languish.
While I wash your wound with tears,
Ease aloud your anguish.
Bellow of the pit in Hell
Where you're...Read more of this...
by
Barry Tebb
It brings to mind Swift leaving a fortune to Dublin
‘For the founding of a lunatic asylum - no place needs it more’.
The breathing beauty of the moors and cheap accommodation
Drew me but the total barbarity of the town stopped me from
Writing a single line: from the hideous facade of its railway
Station - Betjeman must have been drunk or mad...Read more of this...
by
Edna St. Vincent Millay
Safe upon the solid rock the ugly houses stand:
Come and see my shining palace built upon the sand!...Read more of this...
by
Robert Burns
SWEET fa’s the eve on Craigieburn,
And blythe awakes the morrow;
But a’ the pride o’ Spring’s return
Can yield me nocht but sorrow.
I see the flowers and spreading trees,
I hear the wild birds singing;
But what a weary wight can please,
And Care his bosom wringing!
Fain, fain would I my griefs impart,
Yet dare na for your anger;
But secret...Read more of this...
by
Dorothy Parker
"So surely is she mine," you say, and turn
Your quick and steady mind to harder things-
To bills and bonds and talk of what men earn-
And whistle up the stair, of evenings.
And do you see a dream behind my eyes,
Or ask a simple question twice of me-
"Thus women are," you say; for men are wise
And tolerant, in their security.
How shall...Read more of this...
by
Robert Burns
BEHOLD the hour, the boat arrive;
Thou goest, the darling of my heart;
Sever’d from thee, can I survive,
But Fate has will’d and we must part.
I’ll often greet the surging swell,
Yon distant Isle will often hail:
“E’en here I took the last farewell;
There, latest mark’d her vanish’d sail.”
Along the solitary shore,
While flitting sea-fowl round me cry,
Across the...Read more of this...
by
Robert Burns
LATE crippl’d of an arm, and now a leg,
About to beg a pass for leave to beg;
Dull, listless, teas’d, dejected, and deprest
(Nature is adverse to a cripple’s rest);
Will generous Graham list to his Poet’s wail?
(It soothes poor Misery, hearkening to her tale)
And hear him curse the light he first survey’d,
And doubly curse the luckless rhyming trade?
Thou, Nature! partial...Read more of this...
by
James Schuyler
On a day like this the rain comes
down in fat and random drops among
the ailanthus leaves---"the tree
of Heaven"---the leaves that on moon-
lit nights shimmer black and blade-
shaped at this third-floor window.
And there are bunches of small green
knobs, buds, crowded together. The
rapid music fills in the spaces of
the leaves. And the piano comes in,
like an extra heartbeat, dangerous
and lovely. Slower...Read more of this...
by
Wang Wei
Weicheng morning rain moisten light dust
Visitor house green green willow colour new
Urge gentleman further finish one cup alcohol
West outside Yang Pass no friend person
At Weicheng morning rain has dampened light dust,
By the hostel, the willows are all fresh and green.
I urge my friend to drink a last cup of wine,
West of Yang...Read more of this...
by
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
I have taken advantage of the publication of a Second Edition
of my translation of the Poems of Goethe (originally published in
1853), to add to the Collection a version of the much admired classical
Poem of Hermann and Dorothea, which was previously omitted by me
in consequence of its length. Its universal popularity, however,
and the fact that...Read more of this...
by
Edna St. Vincent Millay
April this year, not otherwise
Than April of a year ago,
Is full of whispers, full of sighs,
Of dazzling mud and dingy snow;
Hepaticas that pleased you so
Are here again, and butterflies.
There rings a hammering all day,
And shingles lie about the doors;
In orchards near and far away
The grey wood-pecker taps and bores;
The men are merry at their chores,
And children earnest at their...Read more of this...
by
Rupert Brooke
Here in the dark, O heart;
Alone with the enduring Earth, and Night,
And Silence, and the warm strange smell of clover;
Clear-visioned, though it break you; far apart
From the dead best, the dear and old delight;
Throw down your dreams of immortality,
O faithful, O foolish lover!
Here's peace for you, and surety; here the one
Wisdom -- the truth! -- "All day the good...Read more of this...
by
Thomas Moore
Quick! we have but a second,
Fill round the cup while you may;
For time, the churl, hath beckon'd,
And we must away, away!
Grasp the pleasure that's flying,
For oh, not Orpheus' strain
Could keep sweet hours from dying,
Or charm them to life again.
Then, quick! we have but a second,
Fill round the cup while you...Read more of this...
by
William Butler Yeats
What sort of man is coming
To lie between your feet?
What matter, we are but women.
Wash; make your body sweet;
I have cupboards of dried fragrance.
I can strew the sheet.
The Lord have mercy upon us.
He shall love my soul as though
Body were not at all,
He shall love your body
Untroubled by the soul,
Love cram love's two divisions
Yet keep his substance whole.
...Read more of this...
by
William Butler Yeats
From pleasure of the bed,
Dull as a worm,
His rod and its butting head
Limp as a worm,
His spirit that has fled
Blind as a worm....Read more of this...
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