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Famous Silly Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Milligan, Spike
...Said Hamlet to Ophelia,
I'll draw a sketch of thee,
What kind of pencil shall I use?
2B or not 2B?...Read more of this...



by Ginsberg, Allen
...ambition is to be President despite the fact that 
 I'm a Catholic. 
America how can I write a holy litany in your silly 
 mood? 
I will continue like Henry Ford my strophes are as 
 individual as his automobiles more so they're 
 all different sexes. 
America I will sell you strophes $2500 apiece $500 
 down on your old strophe 
America free Tom Mooney 
America save the Spanish Loyalists 
America Sacco & Vanzetti must not die 
America I am the Scottsboro boys. 
...Read more of this...

by Sidney, Sir Philip
...still flauntingly proceed
To them that do such entertainment need,
So may you still haue somewhat new to say.
On silly me do not the burthen lay
Of all the graue conceits your braine doth breed,
But find some Hercules to beare, insteed
Of Atlas tyrd, your wisedoms heau'nly sway.
For me, while you discourse of courtly tides,
Of cunningest fishers in most troubled streames,
Of straying waies, when valiant Errour guides,
Meanewhile my heart confers with Stellas...Read more of this...

by Betjeman, John
...for me ?

And is it true ? For if it is,
No loving fingers tying strings
Around those tissued fripperies,
The sweet and silly Christmas things,
Bath salts and inexpensive scent
And hideous tie so kindly meant,

No love that in a family dwells,
No carolling in frosty air,
Nor all the steeple-shaking bells
Can with this single Truth compare -
That God was man in Palestine
And lives today in Bread and Wine....Read more of this...

by Silverstein, Shel
...ere too big and his hat was too small,
But he just wasn't, just wasn't funny at all.
He had a trombone to play loud silly tunes,
He had a green dog and a thousand balloons.
He was floppy and sloppy and skinny and tall,
But he just wasn't, just wasn't funny at all.
And every time he did a trick,
Everyone felt a little sick.
And every time he told a joke,
Folks sighed as if their hearts were broke.
And every time he lost a shoe,
Everyone looked awfully blue....Read more of this...



by Keats, John
...
To die, when summer dies on the cold sward.
Why, I have been a butterfly, a lord
Of flowers, garlands, love-knots, silly posies,
Groves, meadows, melodies, and arbour roses;
My kingdom's at its death, and just it is
That I should die with it: so in all this
We miscal grief, bale, sorrow, heartbreak, woe,
What is there to plain of? By Titan's foe
I am but rightly serv'd." So saying, he
Tripp'd lightly on, in sort of deathful glee;
Laughing at the clear stream and sett...Read more of this...

by Brontë, Emily
...ts summer blossoms scent the air;
Yet wait till winter comes again
And who wil call the wild-briar fair?
Then scorn the silly rose-wreath now
And deck thee with the holly's sheen,
That when December blights thy brow
He may still leave thy garland green....Read more of this...

by Moore, Marianne
...at can one do for them --
these savages
condemned to disaffect
all those who are not visionaries
alert to undertake the silly task
of making people noble?
This model of petrine fidelity
who "leaves her peaceful husband
only because she has seen enough of him" --
that orator reminding you,
"I am yours to command."
"Everything to do with love is mystery;
it is more than a day's work
to investigate this science."
One sees that it is rare --
that striking grasp of opposit...Read more of this...

by Brautigan, Richard
...k beginnings, the mountain in back of the

lake promised us eternity, but the lake itself was filled with

thousands of silly minnows, swimming close to the shore

and busy putting in hours of Mack Sennett time.

 The minnows were an Idaho tourist attraction. They

should have been made into a National Monument. Swimming

close to shore, like children they believed in their own im-

mortality .

 A third-year student in engineering at the University of

Montan...Read more of this...

by Drinkwater, John
...come to grieve
Long at a frosty tomb, there still shall be
My happy lyric in the lilac tree.
IX 	When they make silly question of my love,
And speak to me of danger and disdain,
And look by fond old argument to move
My wisdom to docility again;
When to my prouder heart they set the pride
Of custom and the gossip of the street,
And show me figures of myself beside
A self diminished at their judgment seat;
Then do I sit as in a drowsy pew
To hear a priest expou...Read more of this...

by Kipling, Rudyard
...en going
through what was tantamount to a revolution. -- EARL SPENCER)



Red Earl, and will ye take for guide
 The silly camel-birds,
That ye bury your head in an Irish thorn,
 On a desert of drifting words?

Ye have followed a man for a God, Red Earl,
 As the Lod o' Wrong and Right;
But the day is done with the setting sun
 Will ye follow into the night?

He gave you your own old words, Red Earl,
 For food on the wastrel way;
Will ye rise and eat in the night, Red Earl,...Read more of this...

by Lowell, Amy
...I do implore
You for this evening, Theodore," she had said.
"Leave them to-night, and stay with me instead."
"A silly poppet!" Theodore pinched her 
ear.
"You'd like to have our good Elector turn
Me out I think." "But, Theodore, something *****
Ails me. Oh, do but notice how they burn,
My cheeks! The thunder worried me. You're 
stern,
And cold, and only love your work, I know.
But Theodore, for this evening, do not go."
But he had gone, hurried...Read more of this...

by Masefield, John
...
I'll up and say the fault was mine, 
He shan't make play for these here swine." 
And then I thought that that was silly, 
They'd think I was afraid of Billy; 
They'd think (I thought it, God forgive me) 
I funked the hiding Bill could give me. 
And that thought made me mad and hot. 
"Think that, will they? Well, they shall not. 
They shan't think that. I will not. I'm 
Damned if I will. I will not." 
Time! 

From the beginning of the bout 
My...Read more of this...

by Wilde, Oscar
...must the bee,
Its little bellringer, go seek instead
Some other pleasaunce; the anemone
That weeps at daybreak, like a silly girl
Before her love, and hardly lets the butterflies unfurl

Their painted wings beside it, - bid it pine
In pale virginity; the winter snow
Will suit it better than those lips of thine
Whose fires would but scorch it, rather go
And pluck that amorous flower which blooms alone,
Fed by the pander wind with dust of kisses not its own.

The trumpet-m...Read more of this...

by Robinson, Edwin Arlington
...through another season 
To find out why ’twere better late than soon 
To go away and let the sun and moon 
And all the silly stars illuminate 
A place for creeping things, 
And those that root and trumpet and have wings, 
And herd and ruminate,
Or dive and flash and poise in rivers and seas, 
Or by their loyal tails in lofty trees 
Hang screeching lewd victorious derision 
Of man’s immortal vision. 
Shall we, because Eternity records
Too vast an answer for the time-born ...Read more of this...

by Chaucer, Geoffrey
...y Nicholas and Alison
Accorded were to this conclusion,
That Nicholas shall *shape him a wile* *devise a stratagem*
The silly jealous husband to beguile;
And if so were the game went aright,
She shoulde sleepen in his arms all night;
For this was her desire and his also.
And right anon, withoute wordes mo',
This Nicholas no longer would he tarry,
But doth full soft unto his chamber carry
Both meat and drinke for a day or tway.
And to her husband bade her for to say,
I...Read more of this...

by Coleridge, Samuel Taylor
...o pole!
To Mary Queen the praise be given!
She sent the gentle sleep from Heaven,
That slid into my soul.

The silly buckets on the deck,
That had so long remained,
I dreamt that they were filled with dew;
And when I awoke, it rained.

My lips were wet, my throat was cold,
My garments all were dank;
Sure I had drunken in my dreams,
And still my body drank.

I moved, and could not feel my limbs:
I was so light--almost
I thought that I had died in s...Read more of this...

by Miller, Alice Duer
...spital ward together, she and I
Were writing letters for wounded men and dying,
Writing and crying
Over their words, so silly and simple and loving,
Suddenly, looking up, I saw the old Vicar moving
Like fate down the hospital ward, until
He stood still
Beside her, where she sat at a bed.
'Dear friend, come home. I have tragic news,' he said
She looked straight at him without a spasm of fear,
Her face not stern or masked—
'Is it Percy or John?' she asked.
'Percy.Read more of this...

by Chaucer, Geoffrey
...bookes set,
That man shall yield unto his wife her debt?
Now wherewith should he make his payement,
If he us'd not his silly instrument?
Then were they made upon a creature
To purge urine, and eke for engendrure.
But I say not that every wight is hold,* *obliged
That hath such harness* as I to you told, *equipment
To go and use them in engendrure;
Then should men take of chastity no cure.* *care
Christ was a maid, and shapen* as a man, *fashioned
And many a saint, si...Read more of this...

by Burns, Robert
...sma' request;
I'll get a blessin wi' the lave,
          An' never miss't!

Thy wee bit housie, too, in ruin!
Its silly wa's the win's are strewin!
An' naething, now, to big a new ane,
          O' foggage green!
An' bleak December's win's ensuin,
          Baith snell an' keen!

Thou saw the fields laid bare an waste,
An' weary winter comin fast,
An' cozie here, beneath the blast,
          Thou thought to dwell,
Till crash! the cruel coulter past
          ...Read more of this...

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