10 Best Famous Straps Poems

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

• All Famous Straps Poems

 Is it not strange? A year ago to-day,
 With scarce a thought beyond the hum-drum round,
I did my decent job and earned my pay;
 Was averagely happy, I'll be bound.
Ay, in my little groove I was content,
 Seeing my life run smoothly to the end,
With prosy days in stolid labour spent,
 And jolly nights, a pipe, a glass, a friend.
In God's good time a hearth fire's cosy gleam,
 A wife and kids, and all a fellow needs;
When presto! like a bubble goes my dream:
 I leap upon the Stage of Splendid Deeds.
I yell with rage; I wallow deep in gore:
 I, that was clerk in a drysalter's store.

Stranger than any book I've ever read.
 Here on the reeking battlefield I lie,
Under the stars, propped up with smeary dead,
 Like too, if no one takes me in, to die.
Hit on the arms, legs, liver, lungs and gall;
 Damn glad there's nothing more of me to hit;
But calm, and feeling never pain at all,
 And full of wonder at the turn of it.
For of the dead around me three are mine,
 Three foemen vanquished in the whirl of fight;
So if I die I have no right to whine,
 I feel I've done my little bit all right.
I don't know how -- but there the beggars are,
 As dead as herrings pickled in a jar.

And here am I, worse wounded than I thought;
 For in the fight a bullet bee-like stings;
You never heed; the air is metal-hot,
 And all alive with little flicking wings.
But on you charge. You see the fellows fall;
 Your pal was by your side, fair fighting-mad;
You turn to him, and lo! no pal at all;
 You wonder vaguely if he's copped it bad.
But on you charge. The heavens vomit death;
 And vicious death is besoming the ground.
You're blind with sweat; you're dazed, and out of breath,
 And though you yell, you cannot hear a sound.
But on you charge. Oh, War's a rousing game!
 Around you smoky clouds like ogres tower;
The earth is rowelled deep with spurs of flame,
 And on your helmet stones and ashes shower.
But on you charge. It's odd! You have no fear.
 Machine-gun bullets whip and lash your path;
Red, yellow, black the smoky giants rear;
 The shrapnel rips, the heavens roar in wrath.
But on you charge. Barbed wire all trampled down.
 The ground all gored and rent as by a blast;
Grim heaps of grey where once were heaps of brown;
 A ragged ditch -- the Hun first line at last.
All smashed to hell. Their second right ahead,
 So on you charge. There's nothing else to do.
More reeking holes, blood, barbed wire, gruesome dead;
 (Your puttee strap's undone -- that worries you).
You glare around. You think you're all alone.
 But no; your chums come surging left and right.
The nearest chap flops down without a groan,
 His face still snarling with the rage of fight.
Ha! here's the second trench -- just like the first,
 Only a little more so, more "laid out";
More pounded, flame-corroded, death-accurst;
 A pretty piece of work, beyond a doubt.
Now for the third, and there your job is done,
 So on you charge. You never stop to think.
Your cursed puttee's trailing as you run;
 You feel you'd sell your soul to have a drink.
The acrid air is full of cracking whips.
 You wonder how it is you're going still.
You foam with rage. Oh, God! to be at grips
 With someone you can rush and crush and kill.
Your sleeve is dripping blood; you're seeing red;
 You're battle-mad; your turn is coming now.
See! there's the jagged barbed wire straight ahead,
 And there's the trench -- you'll get there anyhow.
Your puttee catches on a strand of wire,
 And down you go; perhaps it saves your life,
For over sandbag rims you see 'em fire,
 Crop-headed chaps, their eyes ablaze with strife.
You crawl, you cower; then once again you plunge
 With all your comrades roaring at your heels.
Have at 'em lads! You stab, you jab, you lunge;
 A blaze of glory, then the red world reels.
A crash of triumph, then . . . you're faint a bit . . .
 That cursed puttee! Now to fasten it. . . .

Well, that's the charge. And now I'm here alone.
 I've built a little wall of Hun on Hun,
To shield me from the leaden bees that drone
 (It saves me worry, and it hurts 'em none).
The only thing I'm wondering is when
 Some stretcher-men will stroll along my way?
It isn't much that's left of me, but then
 Where life is, hope is, so at least they say.
Well, if I'm spared I'll be the happy lad.
 I tell you I won't envy any king.
I've stood the racket, and I'm proud and glad;
 I've had my crowning hour. Oh, War's the thing!
It gives us common, working chaps our chance,
 A taste of glory, chivalry, romance.

Ay, War, they say, is hell; it's heaven, too.
 It lets a man discover what he's worth.
It takes his measure, shows what he can do,
 Gives him a joy like nothing else on earth.
It fans in him a flame that otherwise
 Would flicker out, these drab, discordant days;
It teaches him in pain and sacrifice
 Faith, fortitude, grim courage past all praise.
Yes, War is good. So here beside my slain,
 A happy wreck I wait amid the din;
For even if I perish mine's the gain. . . .
 Hi, there, you fellows! won't you take me in?
Give me a *** to smoke upon the way. . . .
 We've taken La Boiselle! The hell, you say!
Well, that would make a corpse sit up and grin. . . .
 Lead on! I'll live to fight another day.

 'Twas Mulga Bill, from Eaglehawk, that caught the cycling craze; 
He turned away the good old horse that served him many days; 
He dressed himself in cycling clothes, resplendent to be seen; 
He hurried off to town and bought a shining new machine; 
And as he wheeled it through the door, with air of lordly pride, 
The grinning shop assistant said, "Excuse me, can you ride?" 
"See here, young man," said Mulga Bill, "from Walgett to the sea, 
From Conroy's Gap to Castlereagh, there's none can ride like me. 
I'm good all round at everything, as everybody knows, 
Although I'm not the one to talk - I hate a man that blows. 
But riding is my special gift, my chiefest, sole delight; 
Just ask a wild duck can it swim, a wildcat can it fight. 
There's nothing clothed in hair or hide, or built of flesh or steel, 
There's nothing walks or jumps, or runs, on axle, hoof, or wheel, 
But what I'll sit, while hide will hold and girths and straps are tight: 
I'll ride this here two-wheeled concern right straight away at sight." 

'Twas Mulga Bill, from Eaglehawk, that sought his own abode, 
That perched above the Dead Man's Creek, beside the mountain road. 
He turned the cycle down the hill and mounted for the fray, 
But ere he'd gone a dozen yards it bolted clean away. 
It left the track, and through the trees, just like a silver streak, 
It whistled down the awful slope towards the Dead Man's Creek. 

It shaved a stump by half an inch, it dodged a big white-box: 
The very wallaroos in fright went scrambling up the rocks, 
The wombats hiding in their caves dug deeper underground, 
As Mulga Bill, as white as chalk, sat tight to every bound. 
It struck a stone and gave a spring that cleared a fallen tree, 
It raced beside a precipice as close as close could be; 
And then as Mulga Bill let out one last despairing shriek 
It made a leap of twenty feet into the Dead Man's Creek. 

'Twas Mulga Bill from Eaglehawk, that slowly swam ashore: 
He said, "I've had some narrer shaves and lively rides before; 
I've rode a wild bull round a yard to win a five-pound bet, 
But this was the most awful ride that I've encountered yet. 
I'll give that two-wheeled outlaw best; It's shaken all my nerve 
To feel it whistle through the air and plunge and buck and swerve. 
It's safe at rest in Dead Man's Creek, we'll leave it lying still; 
A horse's back is good enough henceforth for Mulga Bill."

 High on a slope in New Guinea
The Grumman Hellcat
lodges among bright vines
as thick as arms. In 1943,
the clenched hand of a pilot
glided it here
where no one has ever been. 

In the cockpit, the helmeted
skeleton sits
upright, held
by dry sinews at neck
and shoulder, and webbing
that straps the pelvic cross
to the cracked
leather of the seat, and the breastbone
to the canvas cover
of the parachute. 

Or say the shrapnel
missed him, he flew
back to the carrier, and every
morning takes the train, his pale
hands on the black case, and sits
upright, held
by the firm webbing.

 1
FIRST, O songs, for a prelude, 
Lightly strike on the stretch’d tympanum, pride and joy in my city, 
How she led the rest to arms—how she gave the cue, 
How at once with lithe limbs, unwaiting a moment, she sprang; 
(O superb! O Manhattan, my own, my peerless!
O strongest you in the hour of danger, in crisis! O truer than steel!) 
How you sprang! how you threw off the costumes of peace with indifferent hand; 
How your soft opera-music changed, and the drum and fife were heard in their stead; 
How you led to the war, (that shall serve for our prelude, songs of soldiers,) 
How Manhattan drum-taps led.

2
Forty years had I in my city seen soldiers parading; 
Forty years as a pageant—till unawares, the Lady of this teeming and turbulent city, 
Sleepless amid her ships, her houses, her incalculable wealth, 
With her million children around her—suddenly, 
At dead of night, at news from the south,
Incens’d, struck with clench’d hand the pavement. 

A shock electric—the night sustain’d it; 
Till with ominous hum, our hive at day-break pour’d out its myriads. 

From the houses then, and the workshops, and through all the doorways, 
Leapt they tumultuous—and lo! Manhattan arming.

3
To the drum-taps prompt, 
The young men falling in and arming; 
The mechanics arming, (the trowel, the jack-plane, the blacksmith’s hammer, tost
 aside
 with
 precipitation;) 
The lawyer leaving his office, and arming—the judge leaving the court; 
The driver deserting his wagon in the street, jumping down, throwing the reins abruptly
 down on
 the
 horses’ backs;
The salesman leaving the store—the boss, book-keeper, porter, all leaving; 
Squads gather everywhere by common consent, and arm; 
The new recruits, even boys—the old men show them how to wear their
 accoutrements—they
 buckle the straps carefully; 
Outdoors arming—indoors arming—the flash of the musket-barrels; 
The white tents cluster in camps—the arm’d sentries around—the sunrise
 cannon,
 and
 again at sunset;
Arm’d regiments arrive every day, pass through the city, and embark from the wharves;

(How good they look, as they tramp down to the river, sweaty, with their guns on their
 shoulders! 
How I love them! how I could hug them, with their brown faces, and their clothes and
 knapsacks
 cover’d with dust!) 
The blood of the city up—arm’d! arm’d! the cry everywhere; 
The flags flung out from the steeples of churches, and from all the public buildings and
 stores;
The tearful parting—the mother kisses her son—the son kisses his mother; 
(Loth is the mother to part—yet not a word does she speak to detain him;) 
The tumultuous escort—the ranks of policemen preceding, clearing the way; 
The unpent enthusiasm—the wild cheers of the crowd for their favorites; 
The artillery—the silent cannons, bright as gold, drawn along, rumble lightly over
 the
 stones;
(Silent cannons—soon to cease your silence! 
Soon, unlimber’d, to begin the red business;) 
All the mutter of preparation—all the determin’d arming; 
The hospital service—the lint, bandages, and medicines; 
The women volunteering for nurses—the work begun for, in earnest—no mere parade
 now;
War! an arm’d race is advancing!—the welcome for battle—no turning away; 
War! be it weeks, months, or years—an arm’d race is advancing to welcome it. 

4
Mannahatta a-march!—and it’s O to sing it well! 
It’s O for a manly life in the camp! 
And the sturdy artillery!
The guns, bright as gold—the work for giants—to serve well the guns: 
Unlimber them! no more, as the past forty years, for salutes for courtesies merely; 
Put in something else now besides powder and wadding. 

5
And you, Lady of Ships! you Mannahatta! 
Old matron of this proud, friendly, turbulent city!
Often in peace and wealth you were pensive, or covertly frown’d amid all your
 children; 
But now you smile with joy, exulting old Mannahatta!

 Gold! We leapt from our benches. Gold! We sprang from our stools.
Gold! We wheeled in the furrow, fired with the faith of fools.
Fearless, unfound, unfitted, far from the night and the cold,
Heard we the clarion summons, followed the master-lure--Gold!

Men from the sands of the Sunland; men from the woods of the West;
Men from the farms and the cities, into the Northland we pressed.
Graybeards and striplings and women, good men and bad men and bold,
Leaving our homes and our loved ones, crying exultantly--"Gold!"

Never was seen such an army, pitiful, futile, unfit;
Never was seen such a spirit, manifold courage and grit.
Never has been such a cohort under one banner unrolled
As surged to the ragged-edged Arctic, urged by the arch-tempter--Gold.

"Farewell!" we cried to our dearests; little we cared for their tears.
"Farewell!" we cried to the humdrum and the yoke of the hireling years;
Just like a pack of school-boys, and the big crowd cheered us good-bye.
Never were hearts so uplifted, never were hopes so high.

The spectral shores flitted past us, and every whirl of the screw
Hurled us nearer to fortune, and ever we planned what we'd do--
Do with the gold when we got it--big, shiny nuggets like plums,
There in the sand of the river, gouging it out with our thumbs.

And one man wanted a castle, another a racing stud;
A third would cruise in a palace yacht like a red-necked prince of blood.
And so we dreamed and we vaunted, millionaires to a man,
Leaping to wealth in our visions long ere the trail began.


II

We landed in wind-swept Skagway. We joined the weltering mass,
Clamoring over their outfits, waiting to climb the Pass.
We tightened our girths and our pack-straps; we linked on the Human Chain,
Struggling up to the summit, where every step was a pain.

Gone was the joy of our faces, grim and haggard and pale;
The heedless mirth of the shipboard was changed to the care of the trail.
We flung ourselves in the struggle, packing our grub in relays,
Step by step to the summit in the bale of the winter days.

Floundering deep in the sump-holes, stumbling out again;
Crying with cold and weakness, crazy with fear and pain.
Then from the depths of our travail, ere our spirits were broke,
Grim, tenacious and savage, the lust of the trail awoke.

"Klondike or bust!" rang the slogan; every man for his own.
Oh, how we flogged the horses, staggering skin and bone!
Oh, how we cursed their weakness, anguish they could not tell,
Breaking their hearts in our passion, lashing them on till they fell!

For grub meant gold to our thinking, and all that could walk must pack;
The sheep for the shambles stumbled, each with a load on its back;
And even the swine were burdened, and grunted and squealed and rolled,
And men went mad in the moment, huskily clamoring "Gold!"

Oh, we were brutes and devils, goaded by lust and fear!
Our eyes were strained to the summit; the weaklings dropped to the rear,
Falling in heaps by the trail-side, heart-broken, limp and wan;
But the gaps closed up in an instant, and heedless the chain went on.

Never will I forget it, there on the mountain face,
Antlike, men with their burdens, clinging in icy space;
Dogged, determined and dauntless, cruel and callous and cold,
Cursing, blaspheming, reviling, and ever that battle-cry--"Gold!"

Thus toiled we, the army of fortune, in hunger and hope and despair,
Till glacier, mountain and forest vanished, and, radiantly fair,
There at our feet lay Lake Bennett, and down to its welcome we ran:
The trail of the land was over, the trail of the water began.


III

We built our boats and we launched them. Never has been such a fleet;
A packing-case for a bottom, a mackinaw for a sheet.
Shapeless, grotesque, lopsided, flimsy, makeshift and crude,
Each man after his fashion builded as best he could.

Each man worked like a demon, as prow to rudder we raced;
The winds of the Wild cried "Hurry!" the voice of the waters, "Haste!"
We hated those driving before us; we dreaded those pressing behind;
We cursed the slow current that bore us; we prayed to the God of the wind.

Spring! and the hillsides flourished, vivid in jewelled green;
Spring! and our hearts' blood nourished envy and hatred and spleen.
Little cared we for the Spring-birth; much cared we to get on--
Stake in the Great White Channel, stake ere the best be gone.

The greed of the gold possessed us; pity and love were forgot;
Covetous visions obsessed us; brother with brother fought.
Partner with partner wrangled, each one claiming his due;
Wrangled and halved their outfits, sawing their boats in two.

Thuswise we voyaged Lake Bennett, Tagish, then Windy Arm,
Sinister, savage and baleful, boding us hate and harm.
Many a scow was shattered there on that iron shore;
Many a heart was broken straining at sweep and oar.

We roused Lake Marsh with a chorus, we drifted many a mile;
There was the canyon before us--cave-like its dark defile;
The shores swept faster and faster; the river narrowed to wrath;
Waters that hissed disaster reared upright in our path.

Beneath us the green tumult churning, above us the cavernous gloom;
Around us, swift twisting and turning, the black, sullen walls of a tomb.
We spun like a chip in a mill-race; our hearts hammered under the test;
Then--oh, the relief on each chill face!--we soared into sunlight and rest.

Hand sought for hand on the instant. Cried we, "Our troubles are o'er!"
Then, like a rumble of thunder, heard we a canorous roar.
Leaping and boiling and seething, saw we a cauldron afume;
There was the rage of the rapids, there was the menace of doom.

The river springs like a racer, sweeps through a gash in the rock;
Buts at the boulder-ribbed bottom, staggers and rears at the shock;
Leaps like a terrified monster, writhes in its fury and pain;
Then with the crash of a demon springs to the onset again.

Dared we that ravening terror; heard we its din in our ears;
Called on the Gods of our fathers, juggled forlorn with our fears;
Sank to our waists in its fury, tossed to the sky like a fleece;
Then, when our dread was the greatest, crashed into safety and peace.

But what of the others that followed, losing their boats by the score?
Well could we see them and hear them, strung down that desolate shore.
What of the poor souls that perished? Little of them shall be said--
On to the Golden Valley, pause not to bury the dead.

Then there were days of drifting, breezes soft as a sigh;
Night trailed her robe of jewels over the floor of the sky.
The moonlit stream was a python, silver, sinuous, vast,
That writhed on a shroud of velvet--well, it was done at last.

There were the tents of Dawson, there the scar of the slide;
Swiftly we poled o'er the shallows, swiftly leapt o'er the side.
Fires fringed the mouth of Bonanza; sunset gilded the dome;
The test of the trail was over--thank God, thank God, we were Home!

 Crops like hedgehogs, high-crown'd hats,
Whispers like Jew MOSES ;
Padded collars, thick cravats,
And cheeks as red as roses.

Faces painted pink and brown ;
Waistcoats strip'd and gaudy ;
Sleeves thrice doubled thick with down,
And straps to brace the body.

Short great-coats that reach the knees,
Boots like French postillion ;
Worn the G----- race to please,
But laugh'd at by the million.

Square-toed shoes, with silken strings,
Pantaloons not fitting ;
Finger deck'd with wedding rings,
And small-clothes made of knitting.

Curricles so low, that they
Along the ground seem dragging ;
Hacks that weary half the day
In Rotten-row are fagging.

Bull-dogs grim, and boxers bold,
In noble trains attending ;
Science which is bought with gold,
And flatt'rers vice commending.

Hair-cords, and plain rings, to shew
Many a LADY's favour,
BOUGHT by ev'ry vaunting beau,
With mischievous endeavour.

Such is giddy FASHION's son !
Such a MODERN LOVER!
Oh ! wou'd their reign had ne'er begun !
And may it soon BE OVER!

 So Abram rose, and clave the wood, and went,
And took the fire with him, and a knife.
And as they sojourned both of them together,
Isaac the first-born spake and said, My Father,
Behold the preparations, fire and iron,
But where the lamb for this burnt-offering?
Then Abram bound the youth with belts and straps,
And builded parapets and trenches there,
And stretchèd forth the knife to slay his son.
When lo! an Angel called him out of heaven,
Saying, Lay not thy hand upon the lad,
Neither do anything to him, thy son.
Behold! Caught in a thicket by its horns,
A Ram. Offer the Ram of Pride instead.

But the old man would not so, but slew his son,
And half the seed of Europe, one by one.

 THE CHILD Margaret begins to write numbers on a Saturday morning, the first numbers formed under her wishing child fingers.
All the numbers come well-born, shaped in figures assertive for a frieze in a child’s room.
Both 1 and 7 are straightforward, military, filled with lunge and attack, erect in shoulder-straps.
The 6 and 9 salute as dancing sisters, elder and younger, and 2 is a trapeze actor swinging to handclaps.
All the numbers are well-born, only 3 has a hump on its back and 8 is knock-kneed.
The child Margaret kisses all once and gives two kisses to 3 and 8.
(Each number is a bran-new rag doll … O in the wishing fingers … millions of rag dolls, millions and millions of new rag dolls!!)