Get Your Premium Membership

Best Famous Crams Poems

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

Search and read the best famous Crams poems, articles about Crams poems, poetry blogs, or anything else Crams poem related using the PoetrySoup search engine at the top of the page.

See Also:
Written by G K Chesterton | Create an image from this poem

The Song against Grocers

 God made the wicked Grocer
For a mystery and a sign,
That men might shun the awful shops
And go to inns to dine;
Where the bacon's on the rafter
And the wine is in the wood,
And God that made good laughter
Has seen that they are good.
The evil-hearted Grocer Would call his mother "Ma'am," And bow at her and bob at her, Her aged soul to damn, And rub his horrid hands and ask What article was next Though MORTIS IN ARTICULO Should be her proper text.
His props are not his children, But pert lads underpaid, Who call out "Cash!" and bang about To work his wicked trade; He keeps a lady in a cage Most cruelly all day, And makes her count and calls her "Miss" Until she fades away.
The righteous minds of innkeepers Induce them now and then To crack a bottle with a friend Or treat unmoneyed men, But who hath seen the Grocer Treat housemaids to his teas Or crack a bottle of fish sauce Or stand a man a cheese? He sells us sands of Araby As sugar for cash down; He sweeps his shop and sells the dust The purest salt in town, He crams with cans of poisoned meat Poor subjects of the King, And when they die by thousands Why, he laughs like anything.
The wicked Grocer groces In spirits and in wine, Not frankly and in fellowship As men in inns do dine; But packed with soap and sardines And carried off by grooms, For to be snatched by Duchesses And drunk in dressing-rooms.
The hell-instructed Grocer Has a temple made of tin, And the ruin of good innkeepers Is loudly urged therein; But now the sands are running out From sugar of a sort, The Grocer trembles; for his time, Just like his weight, is short.


Written by Rudyard Kipling | Create an image from this poem

The Galley-Slave

 Oh gallant was our galley from her caren steering-wheel
To her figurehead of silver and her beak of hammered steel;
The leg-bar chafed the ankle and we gasped for cooler air,
But no galley on the waters with our galley could compare!

Our bulkheads bulged with cotton and our masts were stepped in gold --
We ran a mighty merchandise of niggers in the hold;
The white foam spun behind us, and the black shark swam below,
As we gripped the kicking sweep-head and we made the galley go.
It was merry in the galley, for we revelled now and then -- If they wore us down like cattle, faith, we fought and loved like men! As we snatched her through the water, so we snatched a minute's bliss, And the mutter of the dying never spoiled the lover's kiss.
Our women and our children toiled beside us in the dark -- They died, we filed their fetters, and we heaved them to the shark -- We heaved them to the fishes, but so fast the galley sped We had only time to envy, for we could not mourn our dead.
Bear witness, once my comrades, what a hard-bit gang were we -- The servants of the sweep-head, but the masters of the sea! By the heands that drove her forward as she plunged and yawed and sheered, Woman, Man, or god or Devil, was there anything we feared? Was it storm? Our fathers faced it and a wilder never blew; Earth that waited for the wreckage watched the galley struggle through.
Burning noon or choking midnight, Sickness, Sorrow, Parting, Death? Nay, our very babes would mock you had they time for idle breath.
But to-day I leave the galley and another takes my place; There's my name upon the deck-beam -- let it stand a little space.
I am free -- to watch my messmates beating out to open main, Free of all that Life can offer -- save to handle sweep again.
By the brand upon my shoulder, by the gall of clinging steel, By the welt the whips have left me, by the scars that never heal; By eyes grown old with staring through the sunwash on the brine, I am paid in full for service.
Would that service still were mine! f times and seasons and of woe the years bring forth, Of our galley swamped and shattered in the rollers of the North.
When the niggers break the hatches and the decks are gay with gore, And a craven-hearted pilot crams her crashing on the shore, She will need no half-mast signal, minute-gun, or rocket-flare, When the cry for help goes seaward, she will find her servants there.
Battered chain-gangs of the orlop, grizzled drafts of years gone by, To the bench that broke their manhood, they shall lash themselves and die.
Hale and crippled, young and aged, paid, deserted, shipped away -- Palace, cot, and lazaretto shall make up the tale that day, When the skies are black above them, and the decks ablaze beneath, And the top-men clear the raffle with their clasp-knives in their teeth.
It may be that Fate will give me life and leave to row once more -- Set some strong man free for fighting as I take awhile his oar.
But to-day I leave the galley.
Shall I curse her service then? God be thanked! Whate'er comes after, I have lived and toiled with Men!

Book: Shattered Sighs