Get Your Premium Membership

Famous Pal Poems by Famous Poets

These are examples of famous Pal poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous pal poems. These examples illustrate what a famous pal poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).

See also:

Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry
...be free;
For once I know in the long ago,
 They made a slave of me.

In a flannel shirt from earth's clean dirt,
 Here, pal, is my calloused hand!
Oh, I love each day as a rover may,
 Nor seek to understand.
To enjoy is good enough for me;
 The gipsy of God am I;
Then here's a hail to each flaring dawn!
And here's a cheer to the night that's gone!
And may I go a-roaming on
 Until the day I die!

Then every star shall sing to me
Its song of liberty;
And every morn shall bring ...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William



...et 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-breakfas...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William
...
"You're bald, you're drunk, you can't dance and you're fired."

I stand up.

"Oh yeah, well you stink like a sneaker, pal." I peel off one
of my pumps and throw it in the direction of his fat head then I get the
hell out of there.

A few days later I run into Suzee on Avenue A. Turns out she got fired
for getting me a job there in the first place. But she was completely undaunted,
she dragged me up to this wig store on 14th Street, bought me a mouse brown
shag wig, then got...Read more of this...
by Estep, Maggie
...wn—beyond
my thought how many tables sometimes are 
in forgotten clubs
across & down the world. Your fever conned
us, pal. Will it work out, my solitaire?
The blubber's safe in the tubs,

the dogs are still, & all's well . . . nine long times
I loosed & buried. Then I shot him dead.
I don't remember why.
The Captain of the supply ship, playing for dimes, 
thinks I killed him. The black cards are red
and where's the others? I—...Read more of this...
by Berryman, John
...t!

Golden, whilst your frozen daiquiris
whir at midnight, gleams on you his fur
& silky & black.
Mission accomplished, pal.
My molten yellow & moonless bag,
drained, hangs at rest.

Collect in the cold depths barracuda. Ay,
in Sealdah Station some possessionless
children survive to die.
The Chinese communes hum. Two daiquiris
withdrew into a corner of the gorgeous room
and one told the other a lie....Read more of this...
by Berryman, John



...y:
Sack, drawer, more sack! - 
One that I prayed for,
I, Honest Jack!

To bring down these grey hairs - 
To cut his old pal!
But, I'll be magnanimous - 
Here's to thee Hal!...Read more of this...
by Melville, Herman
...so damned interesting here.
The Government rides for a fall, and things are getting hot.
You'd better stick around, old pal; you'll miss an awful lot."

Yet still I went and wandered far, by secret ways and wide.
Adventure was the shining star I took to be my guide.
For fifty moons I followed on, and every moon was sweet,
And lit as if for me alone the trail before my feet.
From cities desolate with doom my moons swam up and set,
On tower and temple, tent and tomb, on mosque ...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William
...get them straightened. I, sickeningly moral, 

talked about chemicals when I should have been
hanging out with George's pal, Marilyn.
He would have set me right:
Stop your whining and put on this feather tuxedo. Look,
do you want to be famous or not? 

In the latest articles, Boy George is claiming he's not
really happy. Hmm, I think, just like me.
When he comes to New York and stays in hotels in
 Gramercy Park
maybe he feels a pull to the Lower East Side,
wanders towards pla...Read more of this...
by Duhamel, Denise
...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,
An...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William
...the preacher, where he stretched pretending sleep,
With his map of horror turned towards the wall.

"See here, my pious pal," says I, "I've stood it long enough...
Behold! I've mixed some strychnine in a cup;
Enough to kill a dozen men - believe me it's no bluff;
Now watch me, for I'm gonna drink it up.
You've seen me bludgeoned by despair through bitter days and nights,
And now you'll see me squirming as I die.
You're not to blame, you've played the game according to your li...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William
...mission of death that bullet 'ustled along, and it caved
A 'ole in them tracts to 'is 'ide, boys -- but the life o' me pal was saved.

And there as 'e showed me in triumph, and 'orror was chokin' me breath,
On came another bullet on its 'orrible mission of death;
On through the night it cavorted, seekin' its 'aven of rest,
And it zipped through a crack in the sandbags, and it wolloped me bang on the breast.

Was I killed, do you ask? Oh no, boys. Why am I sittin' 'ere
Gazin'...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William
...k at my face, it's crimped and gouged--one of them death-mask things;
Don't seem the sort of man, do I, as might be the pal of kings?
Slouching along in smelly rags, a bleary-eyed, no-good bum;
A knight of the hollow needle, pard, spewed from the sodden slum.
Look me all over from head to foot; how much would you think I was worth?
A dollar? a dime? a nickel? Why, I'm the wealthest man on earth.

No, don't you think that I'm off my base. You'll sing a different tune
If only y...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William
...s apprenticeship.

3. Louke: The precise meaning of the word is unknown, but it
is doubtless included in the cant term "pal".

4. The Cook's Tale is unfinished in all the manuscripts; but in
some, of minor authority, the Cook is made to break off his
tale, because "it is so foul," and to tell the story of Gamelyn, on
which Shakespeare's "As You Like It" is founded. The story is
not Chaucer's, and is different in metre, and inferior in
composition to the Tales. It is supposed ...Read more of this...
by Chaucer, Geoffrey
...eep freeze
A very good home-
No one to take you
For that lovely long run-
But otherwise
'A very good home'
They fed you Pal and Chun
But not that lovely long run,
Until, mad with energy and boredom
You escaped- and ran and ran and ran
Under a car.
Today they will cry for you-
Tomorrow they will but another dog....Read more of this...
by Milligan, Spike
...e, and each had its allure . . .
Ye Gods! these were the happy days, the days when I was poor.

II

Or else, again, old pal of mine, do you recall the times
You struggled with your storyettes, I wrestled with my rhymes;
Oh, we were happy, were we not? -- we used to live so "high"
(A little bit of broken roof between us and the sky);
Upon the forge of art we toiled with hammer and with tongs;
You told me all your rippling yarns, I sang to you my songs.
Our hats were frayed, ou...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William
...en my camp of a night;
Red and gold of the fire-glow, net afloat in the stream;
Scent of the pines and silence, little "pal" pipe alight,
Body a-purr with pleasure, sleep untroubled of dream:
Banquet of paystreak bacon! moment of joy divine,
When the bannock is hot and gluey, and the teapot's nearing the boil!
Never was wolf so hungry, stomach cleaving to spine. . . .
Ha! there's my servant calling, says that dinner will spoil.

What do I want with dinner? Can I eat any more?...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William
...ccurst -- 
"Go forth in the desert and perish in woe, 
The sins of the people are whiter than snow!" 
Then signs to his pal "for to let the brute go". 
(That "pal" as I've heard, is an elegant word, 
Derived from the Persian "Palaykhur" or "Pallaghur"), 
As the scapegoat strains and tugs at the reins 
The Rabbi yells rapidly, "Let her go, Gallagher!" 

The animal, freed from all restraint 
Lowered his head, made a kind of feint, 
And charged straight at that elderly saint. 
S...Read more of this...
by Paterson, Andrew Barton
...ere somewhere north of Sixty-three,
Though where I don't exactly know, and don't precisely care.
The man-size mountains palisade us round on every side;
The river is a-flop with fish, and ripples silver-clear;
The midnight sunshine brims yon cleft -- we think it's the Divide;
We'll get there in a month, maybe, or maybe in a year.

It doesn't matter, does it, pal? We're of that breed of men
With whom the world of wine and cards and women disagree;
Your trouble was a roofless g...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William
...here: it is going to God-Knows-Where—For I am the keeper of the zoo: I say yes and no: I sing and kill and work: I am a pal of the world: I came from the wilderness....Read more of this...
by Sandburg, Carl
...ed; 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!...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Pal poems.


Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry