10 Best Famous Pals Poems

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

• All Famous Pals Poems

 There are strange things done in the midnight sun
 By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
 That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen ***** sights,
 But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
 I cremated Sam McGee.

Now Sam McGee was from Tennessee, where the cotton blooms and blows.
Why he left his home in the South to roam 'round the Pole, God only knows.
He was always cold, but the land of gold seemed to hold him like a spell;
Though he'd often say in his homely way that he'd "sooner live in hell".

On a Christmas Day we were mushing our way over the Dawson trail.
Talk of your cold! through the parka's fold it stabbed like a driven nail.
If our eyes we'd close, then the lashes froze till sometimes we couldn't see;
It wasn't much fun, but the only one to whimper was Sam McGee.

And that very night, as we lay packed tight in our robes beneath the snow,
And the dogs were fed, and the stars o'erhead were dancing heel and toe,
He turned to me, and "Cap," says he, "I'll cash in this trip, I guess;
And if I do, I'm asking that you won't refuse my last request."

Well, he seemed so low that I couldn't say no; then he says with a sort of moan:
"It's the cursed cold, and it's got right hold till I'm chilled clean through to the bone.
Yet 'tain't being dead -- it's my awful dread of the icy grave that pains;
So I want you to swear that, foul or fair, you'll cremate my last remains."

A pal's last need is a thing to heed, so I swore I would not fail;
And we started on at the streak of dawn; but God! he looked ghastly pale.
He crouched on the sleigh, and he raved all day of his home in Tennessee;
And before nightfall a corpse was all that was left of Sam McGee.

There wasn't a breath in that land of death, and I hurried, horror-driven,
With a corpse half hid that I couldn't get rid, because of a promise given;
It was lashed to the sleigh, and it seemed to say:
"You may tax your brawn and brains,
But you promised true, and it's up to you to cremate those last remains."

Now a promise made is a debt unpaid, and the trail has its own stern code.
In the days to come, though my lips were dumb, in my heart how I cursed that load.
In the long, long night, by the lone firelight, while the huskies, round in a ring,
Howled out their woes to the homeless snows -- O God! how I loathed the thing.

And every day that quiet clay seemed to heavy and heavier grow;
And on I went, though the dogs were spent and the grub was getting low;
The trail was bad, and I felt half mad, but I swore I would not give in;
And I'd often sing to the hateful thing, and it hearkened with a grin.

Till I came to the marge of Lake Lebarge, and a derelict there lay;
It was jammed in the ice, but I saw in a trice it was called the "Alice May".
And I looked at it, and I thought a bit, and I looked at my frozen chum;
Then "Here," said I, with a sudden cry, "is my cre-ma-tor-eum."

Some planks I tore from the cabin floor, and I lit the boiler fire;
Some coal I found that was lying around, and I heaped the fuel higher;
The flames just soared, and the furnace roared -- such a blaze you seldom see;
And I burrowed a hole in the glowing coal, and I stuffed in Sam McGee.

Then I made a hike, for I didn't like to hear him sizzle so;
And the heavens scowled, and the huskies howled, and the wind began to blow.
It was icy cold, but the hot sweat rolled down my cheeks, and I don't know why;
And the greasy smoke in an inky cloak went streaking down the sky.

I do not know how long in the snow I wrestled with grisly fear;
But the stars came out and they danced about ere again I ventured near;
I was sick with dread, but I bravely said: "I'll just take a peep inside.
I guess he's cooked, and it's time I looked"; . . . then the door I opened wide.

And there sat Sam, looking cool and calm, in the heart of the furnace roar;
And he wore a smile you could see a mile, and he said: "Please close that door.
It's fine in here, but I greatly fear you'll let in the cold and storm --
Since I left Plumtree, down in Tennessee, it's the first time I've been warm."

There are strange things done in the midnight sun
 By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
 That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen ***** sights,
 But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
 I cremated Sam McGee.

 POLAND, France, Judea ran in her veins,
Singing to Paris for bread, singing to Gotham in a fizz at the pop of a bottle’s cork.

“Won’t you come and play wiz me” she sang … and “I just can’t make my eyes behave.”
“Higgeldy-Piggeldy,” “Papa’s Wife,” “Follow Me” were plays.

Did she wash her feet in a tub of milk? Was a strand of pearls sneaked from her trunk? The newspapers asked.
Cigarettes, tulips, pacing horses, took her name.

Twenty years old … thirty … forty …
Forty-five and the doctors fathom nothing, the doctors quarrel, the doctors use silver tubes feeding twenty-four quarts of blood into the veins, the respects of a prize-fighter, a cab driver.
And a little mouth moans: It is easy to die when they are dying so many grand deaths in France.

A voice, a shape, gone.
A baby bundle from Warsaw … legs, torso, head … on a hotel bed at The Savoy.
The white chiselings of flesh that flung themselves in somersaults, straddles, for packed houses:
A memory, a stage and footlights out, an electric sign on Broadway dark.

She belonged to somebody, nobody.
No one man owned her, no ten nor a thousand.
She belonged to many thousand men, lovers of the white chiseling of arms and shoulders, the ivory of a laugh, the bells of song.

Railroad brakemen taking trains across Nebraska prairies, lumbermen jaunting in pine and tamarack of the Northwest, stock ranchers in the middle west, mayors of southern cities
Say to their pals and wives now: I see by the papers Anna Held is dead.

 Hark to the Sourdough story, told at sixty below,
When the pipes are lit and we smoke and spit
Into the campfire glow.
Rugged are we and hoary, and statin' a general rule,
A genooine Sourdough story
Ain't no yarn for the Sunday School.

A Sourdough came to stake his claim in Heav'n one morning early.
Saint Peter cried: "Who waits outside them gates so bright and pearly?"
"I'm recent dead," the Sourdough said, "and crave to visit Hades,
Where haply pine some pals o' mine, includin' certain ladies."
Said Peter: "Go, you old Sourdough, from life so crooly riven;
And if ye fail to find their trail, we'll have a snoop round Heaven."

He waved, and lo! that old Sourdough dropped down to Hell's red spaces;
But though 'twas hot he couldn't spot them old familiar faces.
The bedrock burned, and so he turned, and climbed with footsteps fleeter,
The stairway straight to Heaven's gate, and there, of course, was Peter.
"I cannot see my mates," sez he, "among those damned forever.
I have a hunch some of the bunch in Heaven I'll discover."
Said Peter: "True; and this I'll do (since Sourdoughs are my failing)
You see them guys in Paradise, lined up against the railing -
As bald as coots, in birthday suits, with beards below the middle . . .
Well, I'll allow you in right now, if you can solve a riddle:
Among that gang of stiffs who hang and dodder round the portals,
Is one whose name is know to Fame - it's Adam, first of mortals.
For quiet's sake he makes a break from Eve, which is his Madame. . . .
Well, there's the gate - To crash it straight, just spy the guy that's Adam."

The old Sourdough went down the row of greybeards ruminatin'
With optics dim they peered at him, and pressed agin the gratin'.
In every face he sought some trace of our ancestral father;
But though he stared, he soon despaired the faintest clue to gather.
Then suddenly he whooped with glee: "Ha! Ha! an inspiration."
And to and fro along the row he ran with animation.
To Peter, bold he cried: "Behold, all told there are eleven.
Suppose I fix on Number Six - say Boy! How's that for Heaven?"

"By gosh! you win," said Pete. "Step in. But tell me how you chose him.
They're like as pins; all might be twins. There's nothing to disclose him."
The Sourdough said: "'Twas hard; my head was seething with commotion.
I felt a dunce; then all at once I had a gorgeous notion.
I stooped and peered beneath each beard that drooped like fleece of mutton.
My search was crowned. . . . That bird I found - ain't got no belly button."

 We must suffer, husband and father, we must suffer, daughter and son,
For the wrong we have taken part in and the wrong that we have seen done.
Let the bride of frivolous fashion, and of ease, be ashamed and dumb,
For I tell you the nations shall rule us who have let their children come!

How shall Australia escape it – we in the South and alone
Who have taken the sword for no right of England and none of our own?
(Can we bring back the husbands and fathers, can we bring the lovers and sons?
From the Dead to the homes we have ruined with the fire of our murdering guns?)

Who shall aid and protect us when the blood-streaked dawn we meet?
Will England, the hated of nations, whose existence depends on her fleet?
Who, because of the deer-parks and game-runs where her wheat-fields and pastures should be,
Must bring food for her herded thousands and shepherd it over the sea?

The beak of the British Octopus, or the Bosses within our reach
Who spend the hot days on the Mountains or summer at Manly Beach!
The thousands of paltry swindlers who are fathoms beneath our scorn –
Or the army of brave sons grown from the children who should have been born!

The wealth you have won has been wasted on trips to the English Rome,
On costly costumes from Paris, and titles and gewgaws from "home".
Shall a knighthood frighten Asia when she comes with the hate of hell?
Will the motor-launch race the torpedo, or the motor-car outspeed the shell?

Keep the wealth you have won from the cities, spend the wealth you have won on the land,
Save the floods that run into the ocean – save the floods that sink into the sand!
Make farms fit to live on, build workshops and technical schools for your sons;
Keep the wealth of the land in Australia – make your own cloth, machines, and guns!

Clear out the Calico Jimmy, the ******, the Chow, and his pals;
Be your foreword for years: Irrigation. Make a network of lakes and canals!
See that your daughters have children, and see that Australia is home,
And so be prepared, a strong nation, for the storm that most surely must come.

 (To Paul Sykes, author of 'Sweet Agony')

He demolished five doors at a sitting

And topped it off with an outsize window

One Christmas afternoon, when drunk;

Sober he smiled like an angel, bowed,

Kissed ladies’ hands and courtesy

Was his middle name.

She tried to pass for thirty at fifty-six,

Called him "My Sweet piglet" and laid out

Dainty doylies for his teatime treats; always

She wore black from toe to top and especially

Underneath, her hair dyed black, stuck up in a

Bun, her lipstick caked and smeared, drawling

From the corner of her mouth like a

Thirties gangsters’ moll, her true ambition.

"Kill him, kill him, the bastard!" she’d scream

As all Wakefield watched, "It’s Grotty,

Grotty’s at it again!" as pubs and clubs

Banned them, singly or together and they

Moved lodgings yet again, landlords and

Landladies left reeling behind broken doors.

Blood-smeared walls covered with a shiny

Patina of carefully applied deceits! "It was

The cat, the kids, them druggies, lads from

Football", anyone, anywhere but him and her.

Once I heard them fight, "Barry, Barry, get

The police," she thumped my door, double

Five-lever mortice locked against them,

"Call t’ police ‘e’s murderin’ me!" I went

And calmed her down, pathetic in black

Underwear and he, suddenly sober, sorry,

Muttering, "Elaine, Elaine, it were only fun,

Give me a kiss, just one."

Was this her fourth or fifth husband, I’d

Lost count and so had she, each one she said

Was worse than the last, they’d all pulled her

Down, one put her through a Dorothy Perkins

Plate-glass window in Wakefield’s midnight,

Leaving her strewn amongst the furs and

Bridal gowns, blood everywhere, such perfection

Of evidence they nearly let her bleed to death

Getting all the photographs.

Rumour flew and grew around her, finally

They said it was all in a book one ‘husband’

Wrote in prison, how she’d had a great house,

Been a brothel madame, had servants even.

For years I chased that book, "Lynch," they

Told me, "It’s by Paul Lynch" but it wasn’t,

Then finally, "I remember, Sykes, they allus

Called him Sykesy" and so it was, Sweet Agony,

Written in prison by one Paul Sykes, her most

Famous inamorato, amateur boxing champion

Of all England, twenty years inside, fly-pitcher

Supreme, king of spielers; how she hated you

For beating her, getting it all down on paper,

Even making money for doing it, "That bastard

Cheated me, writing lying filth about me and

I never saw a penny!" she’d mutter, side-mouthed,

To her pals.

But that book, that bloody book, was no pub myth,

It even won an Arthur Koestler Literary Award

And is compulsive reading; hardly, as a poet,

My cup of tea but I couldn’t put it down.

Paul Sykes, I salute you, immortaliser of Elaine,

Your book became and is my sweetest pain.

 Foes I sniff, when I have less to shout
or murmur. Pals alone enormous sounds
downward & up bring real.
Loss, deaths, terror. Over & out,
beloved: thanks for cabbage on my wounds:
I'll feed you how I feel:-”

of avocado moist with lemon, yea
formaldehyde & rotting sardines O
in our appointed time
I would I could a touch more fully say
my consentless mind. The senses are below,
which in this air sublime

do I repudiate. But foes I sniff!
My nose in all directions! I be so brave
I creep into an Arctic cave
for the rectal temperature of the biggest bear,
hibernating-”in my left hand sugar.
I totter to the lip of the cliff.

 When I was boxing in the ring
In 'Frisco back in ninety-seven,
I used to make five bucks a fling
To give as good as I was given.
But when I felt too fighting gay,
And tried to be a dinger-donger,
My second, Mike Muldoon. would say:
"Go easy, kid; you'll stay the longer."

When I was on the Yukon trail
The boys would warn, when things were bleakest,
The weakest link's the one to fail -
Said I: "by Gosh! I won't be weakest."
So I would strain with might and main,
Striving to prove I was the stronger,
Till Sourdough Sam would snap: "Goddam!
Go easy, son; you'' last the longer."
So all you lads of eighty odd
Take my advice - you'll never rue it:
Be quite prepared to meet your God,
But don't stampede yourselves to do it.
Just cultivate a sober gait;
Don't emulate the lively conger;
No need to race, slow down the pace,
Go easy, Pals - you'll linger longer.

 I've got a little job on 'and, the time is drawin' nigh;
 At seven by the Captain's watch I'm due to go and do it;
I wants to 'ave it nice and neat, and pleasin' to the eye,
 And I 'opes the God of soldier men will see me safely through it.
Because, you see, it's somethin' I 'ave never done before;
 And till you 'as experience noo stunts is always tryin';
The chances is I'll never 'ave to do it any more:
 At seven by the Captain's watch my little job is . . . dyin'.

I've got a little note to write; I'd best begin it now.
 I ain't much good at writin' notes, but here goes: "Dearest Mother,
I've been in many 'ot old `do's'; I've scraped through safe some'ow,
 But now I'm on the very point of tacklin' another.
A little job of hand-grenades; they called for volunteers.
 They picked me out; I'm proud of it; it seems a trifle dicky.
If anythin' should 'appen, well, there ain't no call for tears,
 And so . . . I 'opes this finds you well. -- Your werry lovin' Micky."

I've got a little score to settle wiv them swine out there.
 I've 'ad so many of me pals done in it's quite upset me.
I've seen so much of bloody death I don't seem for to care,
 If I can only even up, how soon the blighters get me.
I'm sorry for them perishers that corpses in a bed;
 I only 'opes mine's short and sweet, no linger-longer-lyin';
I've made a mess of life, but now I'll try to make instead . . .
 It's seven sharp. Good-bye, old pals! . . . a decent job in dyin'.

 Why am I full of joy although
 It drizzles on the links?
Why am I buying Veuve Cliquot,
 And setting up the drinks?
Why stand I like a prince amid
 My pals and envy none?
Ye gods of golf! Today I did
 A Hole in One.

I drove my ball to heaven high,
 It over-topped the hill;
I tried to guess how it would lie,
 If on the fairway still.
I climbed the rise, so sure I'd hit
 It straight towards the green:
I looked and looked,--no trace of it
 Was to be seen.

My partner putted to the pin,
 Then hoarse I heard him call;
And lo! So snug the hole within
 Gleamed up my ball.
Yea, it was mine. Oh what a thrill!
 What dandy drive I'd done
By luck,--well, grant a little skill,
 I'd holed in one.

Say that my score is eighty odd,
 And though I won't give up,--
Say that as round the course I plod,
 I never win a cup.
Say that my handicap's nineteen,
 And of my game make fun,
But holler: 'On the seventh green
 HE HOLED IN ONE.'

 Where once with lads I scoffed my beer
 The landlord's lass I've wed.
Now I am lord and master here;--
 Thank God! the old man's dead.
I stand behind a blooming bar
 With belly like a tub,
And pals say, seeing my cigar:
 'Bill's wed a pub.'

I wonder now if I did well,
 My freedom for to lose;
Knowing my wife is fly as hell
 I mind my 'Ps' and 'Qs'.
Oh what a fuss she made because
 I tweaked the barmaid's bub:
Alas! a sorry day it was
 I wed a pub.

Fat landlord of the Golden Pig,
 They call me 'mister' now;
And many a mug of beer I swig,
 Yet don't get gay, somehow.
So farmer fellows, lean and clean
 Who sweat to earn your grub,
Although you haven't got a bean:
 Don't wed a pub.