Famous Pals Poems by Famous Poets

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

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An Electric Sign Goes Dark

by Carl Sandburg
 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...Read more of this...

Dream Song 71: Spellbound held subtle Henry all his four

by John Berryman
 Spellbound held subtle Henry all his four
hearers in the racket of the market
with ancient signs, infamous characters,
new rythms. On the steps he was beloved,
hours a day, by all his four, or more,
depending. And they paid him.

It was not, so, like no one listening
but critics famed & Henry's pals or other
tellers at all
chiefly in another country. No.
He by the heart...Read more of this...

Old Bob

by Robert William Service
 I guess folks think I'm mighty dumb
 Since Jack and Jim and Joe
Have hit the trail to Kingdom Come
 And left me here below:
Since Death, the bastard, bowled them out,
 And left me faced with--Doubt.

My pals have all passed out on me
 And I am by my lone;
Old Bill was last, and now I see
 His name cut on...Read more of this...

The Cremation Of Sam McGee

by Robert William Service
 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,...Read more of this...

Dream Song 120: Foes I sniff when I have less to shout

by John Berryman
 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...Read more of this...

The Bohemian

by Robert William Service
 Up in my garret bleak and bare
I tilted back on my broken chair,
And my three old pals were with me there,
 Hunger and Thirst and Cold;
Hunger scowled at his scurvy mate:
Cold cowered down by the hollow grate,
And I hated them with a deadly hate
 As old as life is old.

So up in my garret that's near the sky
I smiled...Read more of this...

At The Golden Pig

by Robert William Service
 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...Read more of this...

Triumph

by Robert William Service
 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...Read more of this...

My Mate

by Robert William Service
 I've been sittin' starin', starin' at 'is muddy pair of boots,
 And tryin' to convince meself it's 'im.
(Look out there, lad! That sniper -- 'e's a dysey when 'e shoots;
 'E'll be layin' of you out the same as Jim.)
Jim as lies there in the dug-out wiv 'is blanket round 'is 'ead,
 To keep 'is brains from mixin' wiv...Read more of this...

Pals

by Carl Sandburg
 Take a hold now
On the silver handles here,
Six silver handles,
One for each of his old pals.

Take hold
And lift him down the stairs,
Put him on the rollers
Over the floor of the hearse.

Take him on the last haul,
To the cold straight house,
The level even house,
To the last house of all.

 The dead say nothing
 And the dead know much
 And the...Read more of this...

My Job

by Robert William Service
 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...Read more of this...

Grotty And The Quarryman

by Barry Tebb
 (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...Read more of this...

The Red Retreat

by Robert William Service
 Tramp, tramp, the grim road, the road from Mons to Wipers
 (I've 'ammered out this ditty with me bruised and bleedin' feet);
Tramp, tramp, the dim road -- we didn't 'ave no pipers,
 And bellies that was 'oller was the drums we 'ad to beat.
Tramp, tramp, the bad road, the bits o' kiddies cryin' there,
 The fell birds a-flyin' there,...Read more of this...

A Sourdough Story

by Robert William Service
 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...Read more of this...

Laughing Blue Steel

by Carl Sandburg
 TWO fishes swimming in the sea,
Two birds flying in the air,
Two chisels on an anvil—maybe.
Beaten, hammered, laughing blue steel to each other—maybe.
Sure I would rather be a chisel with you than a fish.
Sure I would rather be a chisel with you than a bird.
Take these two chisel-pals, O God.
Take ‘em and beat ‘em, hammer ‘em, hear ‘em laugh....Read more of this...

Bills Grave

by Robert William Service
 I'm gatherin' flowers by the wayside to lay on the grave of Bill;
 I've sneaked away from the billet, 'cause Jim wouldn't understand;
'E'd call me a silly fat'ead, and larf till it made 'im ill,
 To see me 'ere in the cornfield, wiv a big bookay in me 'and.

For Jim and me we are rough uns, but Bill was...Read more of this...

Australias Peril

by Henry Lawson
 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...Read more of this...

My Prisoner

by Robert William Service
 We was in a crump-'ole, 'im and me;
Fightin' wiv our bayonets was we;
Fightin' 'ard as 'ell we was,
Fightin' fierce as fire because
 It was 'im or me as must be downed;
'E was twice as big as me;
I was 'arf the weight of 'e;
 We was like a terryer and a 'ound.

'Struth! But 'e was sich a 'andsome bloke.
Me, I'm...Read more of this...

Take It Easy

by Robert William Service
 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...Read more of this...

Violets

by D. H. Lawrence
Sister, tha knows while we was on the planks
  Aside o' th' grave, while th' coffin wor lyin' yet
On th' yaller clay, an' th' white flowers top of it
  Tryin' to keep off 'n him a bit o' th' wet,

An' parson makin' haste, an' a' the black
  Huddlin' close together a cause o' th' rain,
Did t' 'appen...Read more of this...

Dream Song 45: He stared at ruin. Ruin stared straight back

by John Berryman
 He stared at ruin. Ruin stared straight back.
He thought they was old friends. He felt on the stair
where her papa found them bare
they became familiar. When the papers were lost
rich with pals' secrets, he thought he had the knack
of ruin. Their paths crossed

and once they crossed in jail; they crossed in bed;
and over an unsigned letter their eyes met,
and...Read more of this...

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