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Famous Willy-Nilly Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Paterson, Andrew Barton
...
-- It's enough to make any man nervous. 

Does he think he'll be waked in the dead of night 
From Melbourne to go willy-nilly, 
To live in the Federal Capital site 
At Tumut or Wagra-go-billy? 
Well, the Melbournites may let the Capital go 
(Here we wink with one eye, please observe us!) 
But not in a hurry! By no means! Oh, no! 
He has not the least need to be nervous!...Read More



by Carman, Bliss
...I like the old house tolerably well, 
Where I must dwell 
Like a familiar gnome; 
And yet I never shall feel quite at home. 
I love to roam. 
Day after day I loiter and explore 
From door to door; 
So many treasures lure 
The curious mind. What histories obscure 
They must immure! 

I hardly know which room I care for best; 
This fronting west,...Read More

by von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang
...d, and join in the chorus with me:
"Vain 'tis to wait till the dolt grows less silly!
Play then the fool with the fool, willy-nilly,--

Children of wisdom,--remember the word!"

Merlin the old, from his glittering grave,
When I, a stripling, once spoke to him,--gave

Just the same answer as that I've preferr'd;
"Vain 'tis to wait till the dolt grows less silly!
Play then the fool with the fool, willy-nilly,--

Children of wisdom,--remember the word!"

And on the Indian breeze...Read More

by Gregory, Rg
...hot from the heart
  x comes up in the middle of himself

  in this way the game is over before
  it began and everyone willy-nilly

  has had to go home
  before he could put a foot outside


(d) enough! – or too much

   reading popa
   i let fly
   too many words

   i bang away
   at the seed
   but can’t break it

   hurt i turn to
   constructing
   castles with cards

   if you can’t split
   the atom
   man stop writing...Read More

by Sandburg, Carl
...the empty land—and blows one last wonder-cry.

And as the shuttling automatic memory of man clicks off its results willy-nilly and 
inevitable as the snick of a mouse-trap or the trajectory of a 42-centimeter projectile,

I flash to the form of a man to his hips in snow drifts of Manitoba and Minnesota—in the 
sled derby run from Winnipeg to Minneapolis.

He is beaten in the race the first day out of Winnipeg—the lead dog is eaten by four team 
mates—and the man goes...Read More



by Williams, William Carlos (WCW)
...nd. I sit
examining my red handful. Balancing 
—this—in and out—agh. 

Love you? It's 
a fire in the blood, willy-nilly! 
It's the sun coming up in the morning.
Ha, but it's the grey moon too, already up
in the morning. You are slow. 
Men are not friends where it concerns 
a woman? Fighters. Playfellows. 
White round thighs! Youth! Sighs—! 
It's the fillip of novelty. It's— 

Mountains. Elephants humping along
against the sky—indifferen...Read More

by Khayyam, Omar
..."I came like Water and like Wind I go." 

XXXI.
Into this Universe, and Why not knowing,
Nor Whence, like Water willy-nilly flowing:
And out of it, as Wind along the Waste,
I know not Whither, willy-nilly blowing. 

XXXII.
Up from Earth's Centre through the Seventh Gate
I rose, and on the Throne of Saturn sate,
And many Knots unravel'd by the Road;
But not the Master-Knot of Human Fate. 

XXXIII.
There was the Door to which I found no Key:
There was th...Read More

by Fitzgerald, Edward
...ped— 
"I came like Water, and like Wind I go."

29

Into this Universe, and why not knowing,
Nor whence, like Water willy-nilly flowing:
And out of it, as Wind along the Waste,
I know not whither, willy-nilly blowing.

30

What, without asking, hither hurried whence?
And, without asking, whither hurried hence!
Another and another Cup to drown
The Memory of this Impertinence!

31

Up from Earth's Centre through the Seventh Gate
I rose, and on the Throne of Saturn sate,...Read More

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