10 Best Famous Yank Poems

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

• All Famous Yank Poems

Written by Rudyard Kipling | The Rhyme of the Three Captains This ballad appears to refer to one of the exploits of the notorious Paul Jones, the American pirate. It is founded on fact. . . . At the close of a winter day, Their anchors down, by London town, the Three Great Captains lay; And one was Admiral of the North from Solway Firth to Skye, And one was Lord of the Wessex coast and all the lands thereby, And one was Master of the Thames from Limehouse to Blackwall, And he was Captain of the Fleet -- the bravest of them all. Their good guns guarded their great gray sides that were thirty foot in the sheer, When there came a certain trading-brig with news of a privateer. Her rigging was rough with the clotted drift that drives in a Northern breeze, Her sides were clogged with the lazy weed that spawns in the Eastern seas. Light she rode in the rude tide-rip, to left and right she rolled, And the skipper sat on the scuttle-butt and stared at an empty hold. "I ha' paid Port dues for your Law," quoth he, "and where is the Law ye boast If I sail unscathed from a heathen port to be robbed on a Christian coast? Ye have smoked the hives of the Laccadives as we burn the lice in a bunk, We tack not now to a Gallang prow or a plunging Pei-ho junk; I had no fear but the seas were clear as far as a sail might fare Till I met with a lime-washed Yankee brig that rode off Finisterre. There were canvas blinds to his bow-gun ports to screen the weight he bore, And the signals ran for a merchantman from Sandy Hook to the Nore. He would not fly the Rovers' flag -- the bloody or the black, But now he floated the Gridiron and now he flaunted the Jack. He spoke of the Law as he crimped my crew -- he swore it was only a loan; But when I would ask for my own again, he swore it was none of my own. He has taken my little parrakeets that nest beneath the Line, He has stripped my rails of the shaddock-frails and the green unripened pine; He has taken my bale of dammer and spice I won beyond the seas, He has taken my grinning heathen gods -- and what should he want o' these? My foremast would not mend his boom, my deckhouse patch his boats; He has whittled the two, this Yank Yahoo, to peddle for shoe-peg oats. I could not fight for the failing light and a rough beam-sea beside, But I hulled him once for a clumsy crimp and twice because he lied. Had I had guns (as I had goods) to work my Christian harm, I had run him up from his quarter-deck to trade with his own yard-arm; I had nailed his ears to my capstan-head, and ripped them off with a saw, And soused them in the bilgewater, and served them to him raw; I had flung him blind in a rudderless boat to rot in the rocking dark, I had towed him aft of his own craft, a bait for his brother shark; I had lapped him round with cocoa husk, and drenched him with the oil, And lashed him fast to his own mast to blaze above my spoil; I had stripped his hide for my hammock-side, and tasselled his beard i' the mesh, And spitted his crew on the live bamboo that grows through the gangrened flesh; I had hove him down by the mangroves brown, where the mud-reef sucks and draws, Moored by the heel to his own keel to wait for the land-crab's claws! He is lazar within and lime without, ye can nose him far enow, For he carries the taint of a musky ship -- the reek of the slaver's dhow!" The skipper looked at the tiering guns and the bulwarks tall and cold, And the Captains Three full courteously peered down at the gutted hold, And the Captains Three called courteously from deck to scuttle-butt: -- "Good Sir, we ha' dealt with that merchantman or ever your teeth were cut. Your words be words of a lawless race, and the Law it standeth thus: He comes of a race that have never a Law, and he never has boarded us. We ha' sold him canvas and rope and spar -- we know that his price is fair, And we know that he weeps for the lack of a Law as he rides off Finisterre. And since he is damned for a gallows-thief by you and better than you, We hold it meet that the English fleet should know that we hold him true." The skipper called to the tall taffrail: -- "And what is that to me? Did ever you hear of a Yankee brig that rifled a Seventy-three? Do I loom so large from your quarter-deck that I lift like a ship o' the Line? He has learned to run from a shotted gun and harry such craft as mine. There is never a Law on the Cocos Keys to hold a white man in, But we do not steal the niggers' meal, for that is a ******'s sin. Must he have his Law as a quid to chaw, or laid in brass on his wheel? Does he steal with tears when he buccaneers? 'Fore Gad, then, why does he steal?" The skipper bit on a deep-sea word, and the word it was not sweet, For he could see the Captains Three had signalled to the Fleet. But three and two, in white and blue, the whimpering flags began: -- "We have heard a tale of a -- foreign sail, but he is a merchantman." The skipper peered beneath his palm and swore by the Great Horn Spoon: -- "'Fore Gad, the Chaplain of the Fleet would bless my picaroon!" By two and three the flags blew free to lash the laughing air: -- "We have sold our spars to the merchantman -- we know that his price is fair." The skipper winked his Western eye, and swore by a China storm: -- "They ha' rigged him a Joseph's jury-coat to keep his honour warm." The halliards twanged against the tops, the bunting bellied broad, The skipper spat in the empty hold and mourned for a wasted cord. Masthead -- masthead, the signal sped by the line o' the British craft; The skipper called to his Lascar crew, and put her about and laughed: -- "It's mainsail haul, my bully boys all -- we'll out to the seas again -- Ere they set us to paint their pirate saint, or scrub at his grapnel-chain. It's fore-sheet free, with her head to the sea, and the swing of the unbought brine -- We'll make no sport in an English court till we come as a ship o' the Line: Till we come as a ship o' the Line, my lads, of thirty foot in the sheer, Lifting again from the outer main with news of a privateer; Flying his pluck at our mizzen-truck for weft of Admiralty, Heaving his head for our dipsey-lead in sign that we keep the sea. Then fore-sheet home as she lifts to the foam -- we stand on the outward tack, We are paid in the coin of the white man's trade -- the bezant is hard, ay, and black. The frigate-bird shall carry my word to the Kling and the Orang-Laut How a man may sail from a heathen coast to be robbed in a Christian port; How a man may be robbed in Christian port while Three Great Captains there Shall dip their flag to a slaver's rag -- to show that his trade is fair!"

Written by Robert William Service | Accordion Some carol of the banjo, to its measure keeping time; Of viol or of lute some make a song. My battered old accordion, you're worthy of a rhyme, You've been my friend and comforter so long. Round half the world I've trotted you, a dozen years or more; You've given heaps of people lots of fun; You've set a host of happy feet a-tapping on the floor . . . Alas! your dancing days are nearly done. I've played you from the palm-belt to the suburbs of the Pole; From the silver-tipped sierras to the sea. The gay and gilded cabin and the grimy glory-hole Have echoed to your impish melody. I've hushed you in the dug-out when the trench was stiff with dead; I've lulled you by the coral-laced lagoon; I've packed you on a camel from the dung-fire on the bled, To the hell-for-breakfast Mountains of the Moon. I've ground you to the shanty men, a-whooping heel and toe, And the hula-hula graces in the glade. I've swung you in the igloo to the lousy Esquimau, And the Haussa at a hundred in the shade. The ****** on the levee, and the Dinka by the Nile have shuffled to your insolent appeal. I've rocked with glee the chimpanzee, and mocked the crocodile, And shocked the pompous penquin and the seal. I've set the yokels singing in a little Surrey pub, Apaches swinging in a Belville bar. I've played an obligato to the tom-tom's rub-a-dub, And the throb of Andalusian guitar. From the Horn to Honolulu, from the Cape to Kalamazoo, From Wick to Wicklow, Samarkand to Spain, You've roughed it with my kilt-bag like a comrade tried and true. . . . Old pal! We'll never hit the trail again. Oh I know you're cheap and vulgar, you're an instrumental crime. In drawing-rooms you haven't got a show. You're a musical abortion, you're the voice of grit and grime, You're the spokesman of the lowly and the low. You're a democratic devil, you're the darling of the mob; You're a wheezy, breezy blasted bit of glee. You're the headache of the high-bow, you're the horror of the snob, but you're worth your weight in ruddy gold to me. For you've chided me in weakness and you've cheered me in defeat; You've been an anodyne in hours of pain; And when the slugging jolts of life have jarred me off my feet, You've ragged me back into the ring again. I'll never go to Heaven, for I know I am not fit, The golden harps of harmony to swell; But with asbestos bellows, if the devil will permit, I'll swing you to the fork-tailed imps of Hell. Yes, I'll hank you, and I'll spank you, And I'll everlasting yank you To the cinder-swinging satellites of Hell.

Written by Rudyard Kipling | The Ballad of Fishers Boarding-House 'T was Fultah Fisher's boarding-house, Where sailor-men reside, And there were men of all the ports From Mississip to Clyde, And regally they spat and smoked, And fearsomely they lied. They lied about the purple Sea That gave them scanty bread, They lied about the Earth beneath, The Heavens overhead, For they had looked too often on Black rum when that was red. They told their tales of wreck and wrong, Of shame and lust and fraud, They backed their toughest statements with The Brimstone of the Lord, And crackling oaths went to and fro Across the fist-banged board. And there was Hans the blue-eyed Dane, Bull-throated, bare of arm, Who carried on his hairy chest The maid Ultruda's charm -- The little silver crucifix That keeps a man from harm. And there was Jake Withouth-the-Ears, And Pamba the Malay, And Carboy Gin the Guinea cook, And Luz from Vigo Bay, And Honest Jack who sold them slops And harvested their pay. And there was Salem Hardieker, A lean Bostonian he -- Russ, German, English, Halfbreed, Finn, Yank, Dane, and Portuguee, At Fultah Fisher's boarding-house The rested from the sea. Now Anne of Austria shared their drinks, Collinga knew her fame, From Tarnau in Galicia To Juan Bazaar she came, To eat the bread of infamy And take the wage of shame. She held a dozen men to heel -- Rich spoil of war was hers, In hose and gown and ring and chain, From twenty mariners, And, by Port Law, that week, men called her Salem Hardieker's. But seamen learnt -- what landsmen know -- That neither gifts nor gain Can hold a winking Light o' Love Or Fancy's flight restrain, When Anne of Austria rolled her eyes On Hans the blue-eyed Dane. Since Life is strife, and strife means knife, From Howrah to the Bay, And he may die before the dawn Who liquored out the day, In Fultah Fisher's boarding-house We woo while yet we may. But cold was Hans the blue-eyed Dane, Bull-throated, bare of arm, And laughter shook the chest beneath The maid Ultruda's charm -- The little silver crucifix That keeps a man from harm. "You speak to Salem Hardieker; "You was his girl, I know. "I ship mineselfs to-morrow, see, "Und round the Skaw we go, "South, down the Cattegat, by Hjelm, "To Besser in Saro." When love rejected turns to hate, All ill betide the man. "You speak to Salem Hardieker" -- She spoke as woman can. A scream -- a sob -- "He called me -- names!" And then the fray began. An oath from Salem Hardieker, A shriek upon the stairs, A dance of shadows on the wall, A knife-thrust unawares -- And Hans came down, as cattle drop, Across the broken chairs. . . . . . . In Anne of Austria's trembling hands The weary head fell low: -- "I ship mineselfs to-morrow, straight "For Besser in Saro; "Und there Ultruda comes to me "At Easter, und I go "South, down the Cattegat -- What's here? "There -- are -- no -- lights -- to guide!" The mutter ceased, the spirit passed, And Anne of Austria cried In Fultah Fisher's boarding-house When Hans the mighty died. Thus slew they Hans the blue-eyed Dane, Bull-throated, bare of arm, But Anne of Austria looted first The maid Ultruda's charm -- The little silver crucifix That keeps a man from harm.

Written by Donald Hall | An old life Snow fell in the night. At five-fifteen I woke to a bluish mounded softness where the Honda was. Cat fed and coffee made, I broomed snow off the car and drove to the Kearsarge Mini-Mart before Amy opened to yank my Globe out of the bundle. Back, I set my cup of coffee beside Jane, still half-asleep, murmuring stuporous thanks in the aquamarine morning. Then I sat in my blue chair with blueberry bagels and strong black coffee reading news, the obits, the comics, and the sports. Carrying my cup twenty feet, I sat myself at the desk for this day's lifelong engagement with the one task and desire.

Written by Charles Webb | Blind It's okay if the world goes with Venetian; Who cares what Italians don't see?-- Or with Man's Bluff (a temporary problem Healed by shrieks and cheating)--or with date: Three hours of squirming repaid by laughs for years. But when an old woman, already deaf, Wakes from a night of headaches, and the dark Won't disappear--when doctors call like tedious Birds, "If only..." up and down hospital halls-- When, long-distance, I hear her say, "Don't worry. Honey, I'll be fine," is it a wonder If my mind speeds down blind alleys? If the adage "Love is blind" has never seemed So true? If, in a flash of blinding light I see Justice drop her scales, yank off Her blindfold, stand revealed--a monster-god With spidery arms and a mouth like a black hole-- While I leap, ant-sized, at her feet, blinded By tears, raging blindly as, sense by sense, My mother is sucked away?

Written by Andrew Barton Paterson | An Evening in Dandaloo It was while we held our races -- Hurdles, sprints and steplechases -- Up in Dandaloo, That a crowd of Sydney stealers, Jockeys, pugilists and spielers Brought some horses, real heelers, Came and put us through. Beat our nags and won our money, Made the game by np means funny, Made us rather blue; When the racing was concluded, Of our hard-earned coin denuded Dandaloonies sat and brooded There in Dandaloo. * * * * * Night came down on Johnson's shanty Where the grog was no way scanty, And a tumult grew Till some wild, excited person Galloped down the township cursing, "Sydney push have mobbed Macpherson, Roll up, Dandaloo!" Great St Denis! what commotion! Like the rush of stormy ocean Fiery horsemen flew. Dust and smoke and din and rattle, Down the street they spurred their cattle To the war-cry of the battle, "Wade in, Dandaloo!" So the boys might have their fight out, Johnson blew the bar-room light out, Then, in haste, withdrew. And in darkness and in doubting Raged the conflict and the shouting, "Give the Sydney push a clouting, Go it, Dandaloo!" Jack Macpherson seized a bucket, Every head he saw he struck it -- Struck in earnest, too; And a man from Lower Wattle, Whom a shearer tried to throttle, Hit out freely with a bottle There in Dandaloo. Skin and hair were flying thickly, When a light was fetched, and quickly Brought a fact to view -- On the scene of the diversion Every single, solid person Come along to help Macpherson -- All were Dandaloo! When the list of slain was tabled -- Some were drunk and some disabled -- Still we found it true. In the darkness and the smother We'd been belting one another; Jack Macpherson bashed his brother There in Dandaloo. So we drank, and all departed -- How the "mobbing" yarn was started No one ever knew -- And the stockmen tell the story Of that conflict fierce and gory, How he fought for love and glory Up in Dandaloo. It's a proverb now, or near it -- At the races you can hear it, At the dog-fights, too! Every shrieking, dancing drover As the canines topple over Yells applause to Grip or Rover, "Give him 'Dandaloo'!" And the teamster slowly toiling Through the deep black country, soiling Wheels and axles, too, Lays the whip on Spot and Banker, Rouses Tarboy with a flanker -- "Redman! Ginger! Heave there! Yank her Wade in, Dandaloo!"

Written by Robert William Service | The Absinthe Drinkers He's yonder, on the terrace of the Cafe de la Paix, The little wizened Spanish man, I see him every day. He's sitting with his Pernod on his customary chair; He's staring at the passers with his customary stare. He never takes his piercing eyes from off that moving throng, That current cosmopolitan meandering along: Dark diplomats from Martinique, pale Rastas from Peru, An Englishman from Bloomsbury, a Yank from Kalamazoo; A poet from Montmartre's heights, a dapper little Jap, Exotic citizens of all the countries on the map; A tourist horde from every land that's underneath the sun -- That little wizened Spanish man, he misses never one. Oh, foul or fair he's always there, and many a drink he buys, And there's a fire of red desire within his hollow eyes. And sipping of my Pernod, and a-knowing what I know, Sometimes I want to shriek aloud and give away the show. I've lost my nerve; he's haunting me; he's like a beast of prey, That Spanish man that's watching at the Cafe de la Paix. Say! Listen and I'll tell you all . . . the day was growing dim, And I was with my Pernod at the table next to him; And he was sitting soberly as if he were asleep, When suddenly he seemed to tense, like tiger for a leap. And then he swung around to me, his hand went to his hip, My heart was beating like a gong -- my arm was in his grip; His eyes were glaring into mine; aye, though I shrank with fear, His fetid breath was on my face, his voice was in my ear: "Excuse my brusquerie," he hissed; "but, sir, do you suppose -- That portly man who passed us had a wen upon his nose?" And then at last it dawned on me, the fellow must be mad; And when I soothingly replied: "I do not think he had," The little wizened Spanish man subsided in his chair, And shrouded in his raven cloak resumed his owlish stare. But when I tried to slip away he turned and glared at me, And oh, that fishlike face of his was sinister to see: "Forgive me if I startled you; of course you think I'm *****; No doubt you wonder who I am, so solitary here; You question why the passers-by I piercingly review . . . Well, listen, my bibacious friend, I'll tell my tale to you. "It happened twenty years ago, and in another land: A maiden young and beautiful, two suitors for her hand. My rival was the lucky one; I vowed I would repay; Revenge has mellowed in my heart, it's rotten ripe to-day. My happy rival skipped away, vamoosed, he left no trace; And so I'm waiting, waiting here to meet him face to face; For has it not been ever said that all the world one day Will pass in pilgrimage before the Cafe de la Paix?" "But, sir," I made remonstrance, "if it's twenty years ago, You'd scarcely recognize him now, he must have altered so." The little wizened Spanish man he laughed a hideous laugh, And from his cloak he quickly drew a faded photograph. "You're right," said he, "but there are traits (oh, this you must allow) That never change; Lopez was fat, he must be fatter now. His paunch is senatorial, he cannot see his toes, I'm sure of it; and then, behold! that wen upon his nose. I'm looking for a man like that. I'll wait and wait until . . ." "What will you do?" I sharply cried; he answered me: "Why, kill! He robbed me of my happiness -- nay, stranger, do not start; I'll firmly and politely put -- a bullet in his heart." And then that little Spanish man, with big cigar alight, Uprose and shook my trembling hand and vanished in the night. And I went home and thought of him and had a dreadful dream Of portly men with each a wen, and woke up with a scream. And sure enough, next morning, as I prowled the Boulevard, A portly man with wenny nose roamed into my regard; Then like a flash I ran to him and clutched him by the arm: "Oh, sir," said I, "I do not wish to see you come to harm; But if your life you value aught, I beg, entreat and pray -- Don't pass before the terrace of the Cafe de la Paix." That portly man he looked at me with such a startled air, Then bolted like a rabbit down the rue Michaudière. "Ha! ha! I've saved a life," I thought; and laughed in my relief, And straightway joined the Spanish man o'er his apéritif. And thus each day I dodged about and kept the strictest guard For portly men with each a wen upon the Boulevard. And then I hailed my Spanish pal, and sitting in the sun, We ordered many Pernods and we drank them every one. And sternly he would stare and stare until my hand would shake, And grimly he would glare and glare until my heart would quake. And I would say: "Alphonso, lad, I must expostulate; Why keep alive for twenty years the furnace of your hate? Perhaps his wedded life was hell; and you, at least, are free . . ." "That's where you've got it wrong," he snarled; "the fool she took was me. My rival sneaked, threw up the sponge, betrayed himself a churl: 'Twas he who got the happiness, I only got -- the girl." With that he looked so devil-like he made me creep and shrink, And there was nothing else to do but buy another drink. Now yonder like a blot of ink he sits across the way, Upon the smiling terrace of the Cafe de la Paix; That little wizened Spanish man, his face is ghastly white, His eyes are staring, staring like a tiger's in the night. I know within his evil heart the fires of hate are fanned, I know his automatic's ready waiting to his hand. I know a tragedy is near. I dread, I have no peace . . . Oh, don't you think I ought to go and call upon the police? Look there . . . he's rising up . . . my God! He leaps from out his place . . . Yon millionaire from Argentine . . . the two are face to face . . . A shot! A shriek! A heavy fall! A huddled heap! Oh, see The little wizened Spanish man is dancing in his glee. . . . I'm sick . . . I'm faint . . . I'm going mad. . . . Oh, please take me away . . . There's BLOOD upon the terrace of the Cafe de la Paix. . . .

Written by Marge Piercy | Implications of One Plus One Sometimes we collide, tectonic plates merging, continents shoving, crumpling down into the molten veins of fire deep in the earth and raising tons of rock into jagged crests of Sierra. Sometimes your hands drift on me, milkweed's airy silk, wingtip's feathery caresses, our lips grazing, a drift of desires gathering like fog over warm water, thickening to rain. Sometimes we go to it heartily, digging, burrowing, grunting, tossing up covers like loose earth, nosing into the other's flesh with hot nozzles and wallowing there. Sometimes we are kids making out, silly in the quilt, tickling the xylophone spine, blowing wet jokes, loud as a whole slumber party bouncing till the bed breaks. I go round and round you sometimes, scouting, blundering, seeking a way in, the high boxwood maze I penetrate running lungs bursting toward the fountain of green fire at the heart. Sometimes you open wide as cathedral doors and yank me inside. Sometimes you slither into me like a snake into its burrow. Sometimes you march in with a brass band. Ten years of fitting our bodies together and still they sing wild songs in new keys. It is more and less than love: timing, chemistry, magic and will and luck. One plus one equal one, unknowable except in the moment, not convertible into words, not explicable or philosophically interesting. But it is. And it is. And it is. Amen.