10 Best Famous Canning Poems

Here is a collection of the top 10 all-time best famous Canning poems. This is a select list of the best famous Canning poetry. Reading, writing, and enjoying famous Canning poetry (as well as classical and contemporary poems) is a great past time. These top poems are the best examples of canning poems.

• All Famous Canning Poems

 'Twas in the year of 1898, ond on the 21st of June,
The launching of the Battleship Albion caused a great gloom,
Amongst the relatives of many persons who were drowned in the River Thames,
Which their relatives will remember while life remains. 

The vessel was christened by the Duchess of York,
And the spectators' hearts felt light as cork
As the Duchess cut the cord that was holding the fine ship,
Then the spectators loudly cheered as the vessel slid down the slip. 

The launching of the vessel was very well carried out,
While the guests on the stands cheered without any doubt,
Under the impression that everything would go well;
But, alas! instantaneously a bridge and staging fell.


Oh! little did the Duchess of York think that day
That so many lives would be taken away
At the launching of the good ship Albion,
But when she heard of the catastrophe she felt woebegone. 

But accidents will happen without any doubt,
And often the cause thereof is hard to find out;
And according to report, I've heard people say,
'Twas the great crowd on the bridge caused it to give way. 

Just as the vessel entered the water the bridge and staging gave way,
Immersing some three hundred people which caused great dismay
Amongst the thousands of spectators that were standing there,
And in the faces of the bystanders, were depicted despair. 

Then the police boats instantly made for the fatal spot,
And with the aid of dockyard hands several people were got,
While some scrambled out themselves, the best way they could--
And the most of them were the inhabitants of the neighborhood. 

Part of them were the wives and daughters of the dockyard hands,
And as they gazed upon them they in amazement stands;
And several bodies were hauled up quite dead.
Which filled the onlookers' hearts with pity and dread. 

One of the first rescued was a little baby,
Which was conveyed away to the mortuary;
And several were taken to the fitter's shed, and attended to there
By the firemen and several nurses with the greatest care. 

Meanwhile, heartrending scenes were taking place,
Whilst the tears ran down many a Mother and Father's face,
That had lost their children in the River Thames,
Which they will remember while life remains. 

Oh, Heaven! it was horrible to see the bodies laid out in rows,
And as Fathers and Mothers passed along, adown their cheeks the tears flows,
While their poor, sickly hearts were throbbing with fear.


A great crowd had gathered to search for the missing dead,
And many strong men broke down because their heart with pity bled,
As they looked upon the distorted faces of their relatives dear,
While adown their cheeks flowed many a silent tear. 

The tenderest sympathy, no doubt, was shown to them,
By the kind hearted Police and Firemen;
The scene in fact was most sickening to behold,
And enough to make one's blood run cold,
To see tear-stained men and women there
Searching for their relatives, and in their eyes a pitiful stare. 

There's one brave man in particular I must mention,
And I'm sure he's worthy of the people's attention.
His name is Thomas Cooke, of No. 6 Percy Road, Canning Town,
Who's name ought to be to posterity handed down,
Because he leapt into the River Thames and heroically did behave,
And rescued five persons from a watery grave. 

Mr. Wilson, a young electrician, got a terrible fright,
When he saw his mother and sister dead-- he was shocked at the sight,
Because his sister had not many days returned from her honeymoon,
And in his countenance, alas! there was a sad gloom. 

His Majesty has sent a message of sympathy to the bereaved ones in distress,
And the Duke and Duchess of York have sent 25 guineas I must confess.
And £1000 from the Directors of the Thames Ironworks and Shipbuilding Company.
Which I hope will help to fill the bereaved one's hearts with glee. 

And in conclusion I will venture to say,
That accidents will happen by night and by day;
And I will say without any fear,
Because to me it appears quite clear,
That the stronger we our houses do build,
The less chance we have of being killed.

 Good Father!… ’Twas an eve in middle June,
And war was waged anew 
By great Napoleon, who for years had strewn 
Men’s bones all Europe through. 

Three nights ere this, with columned corps he’d crossed
The Sambre at Charleroi, 
To move on Brussels, where the English host 
Dallied in Parc and Bois. 

The yestertide we’d heard the gloomy gun 
Growl through the long-sunned day
From Quatre-Bras and Ligny; till the dun 
Twilight suppressed the fray; 

Albeit therein—as lated tongues bespoke— 
Brunswick’s high heart was drained, 
And Prussia’s Line and Landwehr, though unbroke,
Stood cornered and constrained. 

And at next noon-time Grouchy slowly passed 
With thirty thousand men: 
We hoped thenceforth no army, small or vast, 
Would trouble us again.

My hut lay deeply in a vale recessed, 
And never a soul seemed nigh 
When, reassured at length, we went to rest— 
My children, wife, and I. 

But what was this that broke our humble ease?
What noise, above the rain, 
Above the dripping of the poplar trees 
That smote along the pane? 

—A call of mastery, bidding me arise, 
Compelled me to the door,
At which a horseman stood in martial guise— 
Splashed—sweating from every pore. 

Had I seen Grouchy? Yes? Which track took he? 
Could I lead thither on?— 
Fulfilment would ensure gold pieces three,
Perchance more gifts anon. 

“I bear the Emperor’s mandate,” then he said, 
“Charging the Marshal straight 
To strike between the double host ahead 
Ere they co-operate,

“Engaging Bl?cher till the Emperor put 
Lord Wellington to flight, 
And next the Prussians. This to set afoot 
Is my emprise to-night.” 

I joined him in the mist; but, pausing, sought
To estimate his say, 
Grouchy had made for Wavre; and yet, on thought, 
I did not lead that way. 

I mused: “If Grouchy thus instructed be, 
The clash comes sheer hereon;
My farm is stript. While, as for pieces three, 
Money the French have none. 

“Grouchy unwarned, moreo’er, the English win, 
And mine is left to me— 
They buy, not borrow.”—Hence did I begin
To lead him treacherously. 

By Joidoigne, near to east, as we ondrew, 
Dawn pierced the humid air; 
And eastward faced I with him, though I knew 
Never marched Grouchy there.

Near Ottignies we passed, across the Dyle 
(Lim’lette left far aside), 
And thence direct toward Pervez and Noville 
Through green grain, till he cried: 

“I doubt thy conduct, man! no track is here
I doubt they gag?d word!” 
Thereat he scowled on me, and pranced me near, 
And pricked me with his sword. 

“Nay, Captain, hold! We skirt, not trace the course 
Of Grouchy,” said I then:
“As we go, yonder went he, with his force 
Of thirty thousand men.” 

—At length noon nighed, when west, from Saint-John’s-Mound, 
A hoarse artillery boomed, 
And from Saint-Lambert’s upland, chapel-crowned,
The Prussian squadrons loomed. 

Then to the wayless wet gray ground he leapt; 
“My mission fails!” he cried; 
“Too late for Grouchy now to intercept, 
For, peasant, you have lied!”

He turned to pistol me. I sprang, and drew 
The sabre from his flank, 
And ’twixt his nape and shoulder, ere he knew, 
I struck, and dead he sank. 

I hid him deep in nodding rye and oat—
His shroud green stalks and loam; 
His requiem the corn-blade’s husky note— 
And then I hastened home…. 

—Two armies writhe in coils of red and blue, 
And brass and iron clang
From Goumont, past the front of Waterloo, 
To Pap’lotte and Smohain. 

The Guard Imperial wavered on the height; 
The Emperor’s face grew glum; 
“I sent,” he said, “to Grouchy yesternight,
And yet he does not come!” 

’Twas then, Good Father, that the French espied, 
Streaking the summer land, 
The men of Bl?cher. But the Emperor cried, 
“Grouchy is now at hand!” 

And meanwhile Vand’leur, Vivian, Maitland, Kempt, 
Met d’Erlon, Friant, Ney; 
But Grouchy—mis-sent, blamed, yet blame-exempt— 
Grouchy was far away. 

Be even, slain or struck, Michel the strong,
Bold Travers, Dnop, Delord, 
Smart Guyot, Reil-le, l’Heriter, Friant. 
Scattered that champaign o’er. 

Fallen likewise wronged Duhesme, and skilled Lobau 
Did that red sunset see;
Colbert, Legros, Blancard!… And of the foe 
Picton and Ponsonby; 

With Gordon, Canning, Blackman, Ompteda, 
L’Estrange, Delancey, Packe, 
Grose, D’Oyly, Stables, Morice, Howard, Hay,
Von Schwerin, Watzdorf, Boek, 

Smith, Phelips, Fuller, Lind, and Battersby, 
And hosts of ranksmen round… 
Memorials linger yet to speak to thee 
Of those that bit the ground!

The Guards’ last column yielded; dykes of dead 
Lay between vale and ridge, 
As, thinned yet closing, faint yet fierce, they sped 
In packs to Genappe Bridge. 

Safe was my stock; my capple cow unslain;
Intact each cock and hen; 
But Grouchy far at Wavre all day had lain, 
And thirty thousand men. 

O Saints, had I but lost my earing corn 
And saved the cause once prized!
O Saints, why such false witness had I borne 
When late I’d sympathized!… 

So, now, being old, my children eye askance 
My slowly dwindling store, 
And crave my mite; till, worn with tarriance,
I care for life no more. 

To Almighty God henceforth I stand confessed, 
And Virgin-Saint Marie; 
O Michael, John, and Holy Ones in rest, 
Entreat the Lord for me!

 After I got religion and steadied down
They gave me a job in the canning works,
And every morning I had to fill
The tank in the yard with gasoline,
That fed the blow-fires in the sheds
To heat the soldering irons.
And I mounted a rickety ladder to do it,
Carrying buckets full of the stuff.
One morning, as I stood there pouring,
The air grew still and seemed to heave,
And I shot up as the tank exploded,
And down I came with both legs broken,
And my eyes burned crisp as a couple of eggs.
For someone left a blow-fire going,
And something sucked the flame in the tank.
The Circuit Judge said whoever did it
Was a fellow-servant of mine, and so
Old Rhodes' son didn't have to pay me.
And I sat on the witness stand as blind
As Jack the Fiddler, saying over and over,
"l didn't know him at all."

 Often Aner Clute at the gate
Refused me the parting kiss,
Saying we should be engaged before that;
And just with a distant clasp of the hand
She bade me good-night, as I brought her home
From the skating rink or the revival.
No sooner did my departing footsteps die away
Than Lucius Atherton,
(So I learned when Aner went to Peoria)
Stole in at her window, or took her riding
Behind his spanking team of bays
Into the country.
The shock of it made me settle down,
And I put all the money I got from my father's estate
Into the canning factory, to get the job
Of head accountant, and lost it all.
And then I knew I was one of Life's fools,
Whom only death would treat as the equal
Of other men, making me feel like a man.

 I was the Sunday school superintendent,
The dummy president of the wagon works
And the canning factory,
Acting for Thomas Rhodes and the banking clique;
My son the cashier of the bank,
Wedded to Rhodes' daughter,
My week day spent in making money,
My Sundays at church and in prayer.
In everything a cog in the wheel of things-as-they-are:
Of money, master and man, made white
With the paint of the Christian creed.
And then:
The bank collapsed. I stood and looked at the wrecked machine --
The wheels with blow-holes stopped with putty and painted;
The rotten bolts, the broken rods;
And only the hopper for souls fit to be used again
In a new devourer of life, when newspapers, judges and money-magicians
Build over again.
I was stripped to the bone, but I lay in the Rock of Ages,
Seeing now through the game, no longer a dupe,
And knowing "the upright shall dwell in the land
But the years of the wicked shall be shortened."
Then suddenly, Dr. Meyers discovered
A cancer in my liver.
I was not, after all, the particular care of God!
Why, even thus standing on a peak
Above the mists through which I had climbed,
And ready for larger life in the world,
Eternal forces
Moved me on with a push.

 Did you ever hear of Editor Whedon
Giving to the public treasury any of the money he received
For supporting candidated for office?
Or for writing up the canning factory
To get people to invest?
Or for suppressing the facts about the bank,
When it was rotten and ready to break?
Did you ever hear of the Circuit Judge
Helping anyone except the "Q" railroad,
Or the bankers? Or did Rev. Peet or Rev. Sibley
Give any part of their salary, earned by keeping still,
Or speaking out as the leaders wished them to do,
To the building of the water works?
But I -- Daisy Fraser who always passed
Along the street through rows of nods and smiles,
And coughs and words such as "there she goes."
Never was taken before Justice Arnett
Without contributing ten dollars and costs
To the school fund of Spoon River!

  It is true, fellow citizens,
That my old docket lying there for years
On a shelf above my head and over
The seat of justice, I say it is true
That docket had an iron rim
Which gashed my baldness when it fell --
(Somehow I think it was shaken loose
By the heave of the air all over town
When the gasoline tank at the canning works
Blew up and burned Butch Weldy) --
But let us argue points in order,
And reason the whole case carefully:
First I concede my head was cut,
But second the frightful thing was this:
The leaves of the docket shot and showered
Around me like a deck of cards
In the hands of a sleight of hand performer.
And up to the end I saw those leaves
Till I said at last, "Those are not leaves,
Why, can't you see they are days and days
And the days and days of seventy years?
And why do you torture me with leaves
And the little entries on them?

 Do you think that odes and sermons,
And the ringing of church bells,
And the blood of old men and young men,
Martyred for the truth they saw
With eyes made bright by faith in God,
Accomplished the world's great reformations?
Do you think that the Battle Hymn of the Republic
Would have been heard if the chattel slave
Had crowned the dominant dollar,
In spite of Whitney's cotton gin,
And steam and rolling mills and iron
And telegraphs and white free labor?
Do you think that Daisy Fraser
Had been put out and driven out
If the canning works had never needed
Her little house and lot?
Or do you think the poker room
Of Johnnie Taylor, and Burchard's bar
Had been closed up if the money lost
And spent for beer had not been turned,
By closing them, to Thomas Rhodes
For larger sales of shoes and blankets,
And children's cloaks and gold-oak cradles?
Why, a moral truth is a hollow tooth
Which must be propped with gold.