Famous Take A Chance Poems by Famous Poets

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

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Come-by-Chance

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 As I pondered very weary o'er a volume long and dreary -- 
For the plot was void of interest; 'twas the Postal Guide, in fact -- 
There I learnt the true location, distance, size and population 
Of each township, town, and village in the radius of the Act. 
And I learnt that Puckawidgee stands beside the Murrumbidgee, 
And the...Read more of this...

Taking His Chance

by Henry Lawson
 They stood by the door of the Inn on the Rise; 
May Carney looked up in the bushranger's eyes: 
`Oh! why did you come? -- it was mad of you, Jack; 
You know that the troopers are out on your track.' 
A laugh and a shake of his obstinate head -- 
`I wanted a dance, and I'll chance it,'...Read more of this...

My Philosophy of Life

by John Ashbery
 Just when I thought there wasn't room enough
for another thought in my head, I had this great idea--
call it a philosophy of life, if you will.Briefly,
it involved living the way philosophers live,
according to a set of principles. OK, but which ones?

That was the hardest part, I admit, but I had a
kind of dark foreknowledge of what it would be...Read more of this...

Not probable -- The barest Chance

by Emily Dickinson
 Not probable -- The barest Chance --
A smile too few -- a word too much
And far from Heaven as the Rest --
The Soul so close on Paradise --

What if the Bird from journey far --
Confused by Sweets -- as Mortals -- are --
Forget the secret of His wing
And perish -- but a Bough between --
Oh, Groping feet --
Oh Phantom...Read more of this...

Hudsons Last Voyage

by Henry Van Dyke
 June 22, 1611 

THE SHALLOP ON HUDSON BAY 

One sail in sight upon the lonely sea
And only one, God knows! For never ship 
But mine broke through the icy gates that guard 
These waters, greater grown than any since
We left the shores of England. We were first, 
My men, to battle in between the bergs
And floes to these wide...Read more of this...

The Battle of Alma

by William Topaz McGonagall
 'Twas on the heights of Alma the battle began.
But the Russians turned and fled every man;
Because Sir Colin Campbell's Highland Brigade put them to flight,
At the charge of the bayonet, which soon ended the fight. 

Sir Colin Campbell he did loudly cry,
Let the Highlanders go forward, they will win or die,
We'll hae nane but Hieland bonnets here,
So forward, my...Read more of this...

And 2Morrow

by Tupac Shakur
Today is filled with anger
fueled with hidden hate
scared of being outcast
afraid of common fate
Today is built on tragedies
which no one wants 2 face
nightmares 2 humanities
and morally disgraced
Tonight is filled with rage
violence in the air
children bred with ruthlessness
because no one at home cares
Tonight I lay my head down
but the pressure never stops
knawing at my sanity
content when I am dropped
But 2morrow I...Read more of this...

James Simmons R.i.p

by Barry Tebb
 You were the one I wanted most to know

So like yet unlike, like fire and snow,

The casual voice, the sharp invective,

The barbed wit, the lapsed Irish Protestant

Who never gave a ****, crossed the palms

Of the great and good with coins hot with contempt

For the fakers and the tricksters whose poetry

Deftly bent to fashion’s latest slant.



You wrote from the heart,...Read more of this...

Song of the Devoted Slave

by Adela Florence Cory Nicolson
   On the wooden deck of the wooden Junk, silent, alone, we lie,
   With silver foam about the bow, and a silver moon in the sky:
   A glimmer of dimmer silver here, from the anklets round your feet,
   Our lips may close on each other's lips, but never our souls may meet.

...Read more of this...

The Plains

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 A land, as far as the eye can see, where the waving grasses grow 
Or the plains are blackened and burnt and bare, where the false mirages go 
Like shifting symbols of hope deferred - land where you never know. 

Land of the plenty or land of want, where the grey Companions dance, 
Feast or famine, or hope or...Read more of this...

If I Should Ever By Chance

by Edward Thomas
 IF I should ever by chance grow rich 
I'll buy Codham, Cockridden, and Childerditch, 
Roses, Pyrgo, and Lapwater, 
And let them all to my eldest daughter. 
The rent I shall ask of her will be only 
Each year's first violets, white and lonely, 
The first primroses and orchises-- 
She must find them before I do, that is. 
But if...Read more of this...

Luck is not chance --

by Emily Dickinson
 Luck is not chance --
It's Toil --
Fortune's expensive smile
Is earned --
The Father of the Mine
Is that old-fashioned Coin
We spurned --...Read more of this...

Rev. Abner Peet

by Edgar Lee Masters
 I had no objection at all
To selling my household effects at auction
On the village square.
It gave my beloved flock the chance
To get something which had belonged to me
For a memorial.
But that trunk which was struck off
To Burchard, the grog-keeper!
Did you know it contained the manuscripts
Of a lifetime of sermons?
And he burned them as waste paper....Read more of this...

The Tay Bridge Disaster

by William Topaz McGonagall
 Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silv'ry Tay!
Alas! I am very sorry to say
That ninety lives have been taken away
On the last Sabbath day of 1879,
Which will be remember'd for a very long time.

'Twas about seven o'clock at night,
And the wind it blew with all its might,
And the rain came pouring down,
And the dark clouds seemed to frown,
And the Demon...Read more of this...

The Klondike

by Edwin Arlington Robinson
 Never mind the day we left, or the day the women clung to us; 
All we need now is the last way they looked at us. 
Never mind the twelve men there amid the cheering— 
Twelve men or one man, ’t will soon be all the same; 
For this is what we know: we are five men together,
Five left...Read more of this...

I. M. R. T. Hamilton Bruce (1846-1899)

by William Ernest Henley
 Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the...Read more of this...

Resolution And Independence

by William Wordsworth
 I 

There was a roaring in the wind all night; 
The rain came heavily and fell in floods; 
But now the sun is rising calm and bright; 
The birds are singing in the distant woods; 
Over his own sweet voice the Stock-dove broods; 
The Jay makes answer as the Magpie chatters; 
And all the air is filled with pleasant...Read more of this...

The Little Old Lady in Lavender Silk

by Dorothy Parker
 I was seventy-seven, come August,
I shall shortly be losing my bloom;
I've experienced zephyr and raw gust
And (symbolical) flood and simoom.

When you come to this time of abatement,
To this passing from Summer to Fall,
It is manners to issue a statement
As to what you got out of it all.

So I'll say, though reflection unnerves me
And pronouncements I dodge as I can,
That...Read more of this...

In the Stable

by Andrew Barton Paterson
 What! you don't like him; well, maybe -- we all have our fancies, of course: 
Brumby to look at, you reckon? Well, no; he's a thoroughbred horse; 
Sired by a son of old Panic -- look at his ears and his head -- 
Lop-eared and Roman-nosed, ain't he? -- well, that's how the Panics are bred. 
Gluttonous, ugly and...Read more of this...

If By Chance Your Eye Offend You

by A E Housman
 If by chance your eye offend you, 
Pluck it out, lad, and be sound: 
'Twill hurt, but here are salves to friend you, 
And many a balsam grows on ground. 

And if your hand or foot offend you, 
Cut it off, lad, and be whole; 
But play the man, stand up and end you, 
When your sickness is your...Read more of this...

Too little way the House must lie

by Emily Dickinson
 Too little way the House must lie
From every Human Heart
That holds in undisputed Lease
A white inhabitant --

Too narrow is the Right between --
Too imminent the chance --
Each Consciousness must emigrate
And lose its neighbor once --...Read more of this...

Politeness

by Robert William Service
 The English and the French were met
Upon the field of future battle;
The foes were formidably set
And waiting for the guns to rattle;
When from the serried ranks of France
The English saw with woeful presage
Under a flaming flag advance
A trumpeter who bore a message.

'Twas from their Marshal, quite polite,
Yet made the English leader shiver.
"We're perched," said he, "upon the height,
While you're...Read more of this...

Chance Meetings

by Conrad Aiken
In the mazes of loitering people, the watchful and furtive, 
The shadows of tree-trunks and shadows of leaves, 
In the drowse of the sunlight, among the low voices, 
I suddenly face you, 
  
Your dark eyes return for a space from her who is with you, 
They shine into mine with a sunlit desire, 
They say an 'I love...Read more of this...

On Looking Up By Chance At The Constellations

by Robert Frost
 You'll wait a long, long time for anything much
To happen in heaven beyond the floats of cloud
And the Northern Lights that run like tingling nerves.
The sun and moon get crossed, but they never touch,
Nor strike out fire from each other nor crash out loud.
The planets seem to interfere in their curves
But nothing ever happens, no harm is done.
We may...Read more of this...

Chance

by Helen Hunt Jackson
 These things wondering I saw beneath the sun: 
That never yet the race was to the swift, 
The fight unto the mightiest to lift, 
Nor favors unto men whose skill had done 
Great works, nor riches ever unto one 
Wise man of understanding. All is drift 
Of time and chance, and none may stay or sift 
Or know the...Read more of this...

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