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Famous Tucker Poems by Famous Poets

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

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by Lawson, Henry
...of the work. 
And many a poor devil then, when his strength and his money were spent, 
Was sure of a lecture -- and tucker, and a shakedown in Cameron's tent. 

He shunned all the girls in the camp, 
and they said he was proof to the dart -- 
That nothing but whisky and gaming had ever a place in his heart; 
He carried a packet about him, well hid, but I saw it at last, 
And -- well, 'tis a very old story -- the story of Cameron's past: 
A ring and a sprig o' white he...Read more of this...



by Lawson, Henry
...s seem to travel aft; 
In the cushioned cabins, aft, 
With saloons 'n' smoke-rooms, aft -- 
There is sheets 'n' best of tucker for the first-salooners, aft. 

Our beef is just like scrapin's from the inside of a hide, 
And the spuds were pulled too early, for they're mostly green inside; 
But from somewhere back amidships there's a smell o' cookin' waft, 
An' I'd give my earthly prospects for a real good tuck-out aft -- 
Ham an' eggs 'n' coffee, aft, 
Say, cold fowl for l...Read more of this...

by Lawson, Henry
...an' dust an' heat, 
Or it's trampin' trampin' tra-a-a-mpin' 
through mud and slush 'n sleet; 
It's tramp an' tramp for tucker -- one everlastin' strife, 
An' wearin' out yer boots an' heart in the wastin' of yer life. 

They whine o' lost an' wasted lives in idleness and crime -- 
I've wasted mine for twenty years, and grafted all the time 
And never drunk the stuff I earned, nor gambled when I shore -- 
But somehow when yer on the track yer life seems wasted more. 
...Read more of this...

by Hugo, Victor
...
 Than end so nobly shown. 
 Mourning, but brave, I march; where duty leads, 
 I seek the vast unknown. 
 
 MARWOOD TUCKER. 


 




...Read more of this...

by Lawson, Henry
...can's looks were black -- 
And the time had come, as the shearer knew, to carry his swag Out Back. 

For time means tucker, and tramp you must, 
where the scrubs and plains are wide, 
With seldom a track that a man can trust, or a mountain peak to guide; 
All day long in the dust and heat -- when summer is on the track -- 
With stinted stomachs and blistered feet, 
they carry their swags Out Back. 

He tramped away from the shanty there, when the days were long and ho...Read more of this...



by Sandburg, Carl
...wagons, making streets and schools,
Kin of the ax and rifle, kin of the plow and horse,
Singing Yankee Doodle, Old Dan Tucker, Turkey in the Straw,
You in the coonskin cap at a log house door hearing a lone wolf howl,
You at a sod house door reading the blizzards and chinooks let loose from Medicine Hat,
I am dust of your dust, as I am brother and mother
To the copper faces, the worker in flint and clay,
The singing women and their sons a thousand years ago
Marching single f...Read more of this...

by Kipling, Rudyard
...'abit or you'd die, 
Unless you lived your life but one day long, 
Nor didn't prophesy nor fret at all, 
But drew your tucker some'ow from the world, 
An' never bothered what you might ha' done. 

But, Gawd, what things are they I'aven't done? 
I've turned my 'and to most, an' turned it good, 
In various situations round the world 
For 'im that doth not work must surely die; 
But that's no reason man should labour all 
'Is life on one same shift—life's none so long. ...Read more of this...

by Kipling, Rudyard
...the 'abit or you'd die,
Unless you lived your life but one day long,
Nor didn't prophesy nor fret at all,
But drew your tucker some'ow from the world,
An' never bothered what you might ha' done.

But, Gawd, what things are they I'aven't done?
I've turned my 'and to most, an' turned it good,
In various situations round the world
For 'im that doth not work must surely die;
But that's no reason man should labour all
'Is life on one same shift -- life's none so long.

The...Read more of this...

by Lawson, Henry
...amping in the mulga, and the rain is falling slow, 
While you nurse your rheumatism 'neath a patch of calico; 
Short of tucker or tobacco, short of sugar or of tea, 
And the scrubs are dark and dismal, and the plains are like a sea; 
Don't give up and be down-hearted -- to the soul of man be true! 
Grin! if you've a mate to grin for, grin and jest and don't look blue; 
For it can't go on for ever, and -- `I'll rise some day,' says you. 

When you've tramped the Sydney pav...Read more of this...

by Lawson, Henry
...amping in the mulga, and the rain is falling slow, 
While you nurse your rheumatism 'neath a patch of calico; 
Short of tucker or tobacco, short of sugar or of tea, 
And the scrubs are dark and dismal, and the plains are like a sea; 
Don't give up and be down-hearted -- to the soul of man be true! 
Grin! if you've a mate to grin for, grin and jest and don't look blue; 
For it can't go on for ever, and -- `I'll rise some day,' says you. 

When you've tramped the Sydney pav...Read more of this...

by Lawson, Henry
...

I suppose he's tramping somewhere where the bushmen carry swags, 
Cadging round the wretched stations with his empty tucker-bags; 
And I fancy that of evenings, when the track is growing dim, 
What he `might have been and wasn't' comes along and troubles him....Read more of this...

by Service, Robert William
...he gods of symmetry I swear I'll get you down.
Your smooth and smug convexity, by heck! I will subdue,
And when you tucker in again with joy will I refulge;
No longer of my toes will you obstruct my downward view . . .
With might and main I'll fight to gain the
 Battle of the Bulge....Read more of this...

by Lawson, Henry
...sealed the paper's doom, 
Though we gave him ads. for nothing when the STAR began to boom: 
'Twas a paltry bill for tucker, and the crawling, sneaking clown 
Sold the debt for twice its value to the men who hated Brown. 

I was digging up the river, and I swam the flooded bend 
With a little cash and comfort for my literary friend. 
Brown was sitting sad and lonely with his head bowed in despair, 
While a single tallow candle threw a flicker on his hair, 
And the ...Read more of this...

by Lawson, Henry
...llet -- breeding rabbits in the bush; 
Where the idle shanty-keeper never fails to make a draw, 
And the dummy gets his tucker through provisions in the law; 
Where the labour-agitator -- when the shearers rise in might -- 
Makes his money sacrificing all his substance for The Right; 
Where the squatter makes his fortune, and `the seasons rise and fall', 
And the poor and honest bushman has to suffer for it all; 
Where the drovers and the shearers and the bushmen and the rest...Read more of this...

by Kipling, Rudyard
...,
 And some on the Wallaby track:
And some of us drift to Sarawak,
 And some of us drift up The Fly,
And some share our tucker with tigers,
 And some with the gentle Masai,
 (Dear boys!),
 Take tea with the giddy Masai.

We've painted The Islands vermilion,
 We've pearled on half-shares in the Bay,
We've shouted on seven-ounce nuggets,
 We've starved on a Seedeeboy's pay;
We've laughed at the world as we found it, --
 Its women and cities and men --
From Sayyid Burgash in...Read more of this...

by Lawson, Henry
...very shoot
The pens was of polished mahogany and everything else to suit
The huts had springs to the mattresses and the tucker was simply grand
And every night by the billabong we danced to a German band

Our pay was the wool on the jumbucks' backs so we shore till all was blue
The sheep was washed afore they was shore and the rams were scented too
And we all of us cried when the shed cut out in spite of the long hot days
For every hour them girls waltzed in with whisky and b...Read more of this...

by Lawson, Henry
...an' the bullicks an' the dray 
Was cut off on some risin' ground while floods around us lay; 
An' we soon run short of tucker an' terbacca, which was bad, 
An' pertaters dipped in honey was the only tuck we had. 

An' half our bullicks perished when the drought was on the land, 
An' the burnin' heat that dazzles as it dances on the sand; 
When the sun-baked clay an' gravel paves for miles the burnin' creeks, 
An' at ev'ry step yer travel there a rottin' carcase reeks -- ...Read more of this...

by Hugo, Victor
..., 
 And sorrows were my share; 
 And why God's will of me a cypress made, 
 When roses bright ye were. 
 
 MARWOOD TUCKER. 


 




...Read more of this...

by Paterson, Andrew Barton
...mbuck to drink at the water-hole,
 Up jumped the swagman and grabbed him in glee;
And he sang as he put him away in his tucker-bag,
 "You'll come a-waltzing Matilda with me!" 

Down came the Squatter a-riding his thorough-bred;
 Down came Policemen—one, two, and three.
"Whose is the jumbuck you've got in the tucker-bag?
 You'll come a-waltzing Matilda with me." 

But the swagman, he up and he jumped in the water-hole,
 Drowning himself by the Coolabah tree;
And his gh...Read more of this...

by Lindsay, Vachel
...the smear and smash.
They tried to buy the State-house flag.
They showed the Janitor the cash.

And old Dan Tucker on a toot,
Or John Paul Jones before the breeze,
Or Indians eating fat fried dog,
Were not as happy babes as these.

One morn, in hills near Cripple-creek
With cheerful swears the two awoke.
The Swede had twenty cents, all right.
But Gassy Thompson was clean broke....Read more of this...

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