Famous Sourdough Poems by Famous Poets

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

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A Sourdough Story

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


American Beauty

...great fools let loose in the No Name bar
on Sausalito's bay.

In San Francisco we'd perch on a waterfront pier
chewing sourdough and cheese, swilling champagne,
kicking our heels;
crooning lewd songs, hooting like seagulls,
we bayed with the seals.

Then you married someone in Mexico,
broke up in two weeks, didn't bother to divorce,
claimed it didn't count.
You dumped number three, fled to Albany
to become a pedant.

Averse to domesticity, you read for your Ph.D.
Your four-y...Read more of this...
by Kizer, Carolyn

Dance-Hall Girls

...elf can see
Through half a century of haze
A heap of goodness in their glee
And kindness in their wanton ways.
Alas, my sourdough days are dead,
Yet let me toss a tankard down . . .
Here's hoping that you wed and bred,
And lives of circumspection led,
Gay dance-hall girls o Dawson Town!...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William

No Sourdough

...To be a bony feed Sourdough
You must, by Yukon Law,
Have killed a moose,
And robbed a sluice,
AND BUNKED UP WITH A SQUAW. . . .

Alas! Sourdough I'll never be.
Oh, sad is my excuse:
My shooting's so damn bad, you see . . .
I've never killed a moose....Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William

Take It Easy

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


The Ballad Of Blasphemous Bill

...crazed in the winter wild, with its grim heart-breaking woes,
And the ruthless strife for a grip on life that only the sourdough knows!
North by the compass, North I pressed; river and peak and plain
Passed like a dream I slept to lose and I waked to dream again.

River and plain and mighty peak--and who could stand unawed?
As their summits blazed, he could stand undazed at the foot of the throne of God.
North, aye, North, through a land accurst, shunned by the scouring brut...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William

The Ballad Of The Ice-Worm Cocktail

...ng out his chest as if he owned the town."
Said Sheriff Black: "he has no lack of frigorated cheek;
He called himself a Sourdough when he'd just been here a week."
Said Deacon White: "Methinks you're right, and so I have a plan
By which I hope to prove to-night the mettle of the man.
Just meet me where the hooch-bird sings, and though our ways be rude
We'll make a proper Sourdough of this Piccadilly dude."

Within the Malamute Saloon were gathered all the gang;
The fun was fa...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William

The Heart Of The Sourdough

...There where the mighty mountains bare their fangs unto the moon,
There where the sullen sun-dogs glare in the snow-bright, bitter noon,
And the glacier-glutted streams sweep down at the clarion call of June.

There where the livid tundras keep their tryst with the tranquil snows;
There where the silences are spawned, and the light of hell-fire flows
Into t...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William

The Man From Eldorado

...dreamed at nights,
 (Thank God, he'll never see the place again!)
Where he lived on tinned tomatoes, beef embalmed and sourdough bread,
 On rusty beans and bacon furred with mould;
His stomach's out of kilter and his system full of lead,
 But it's over, and his poke is full of gold.

He has panted at the windlass, he has loaded in the drift,
 He has pounded at the face of oozy clay;
He has taxed himself to sickness, dark and damp and double shift,
 He has labored like a demo...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William

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