All Poems

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The Squaw Man

© Robert William Service

The cow-moose comes to water, and the beaver's overbold,
The net is in the eddy of the stream;
The teepee stars the vivid sward with russet, red and gold,
And in the velvet gloom the fire's a-gleam.

The Pines

© Robert William Service

We sleep in the sleep of ages, the bleak, barbarian pines;
The gray moss drapes us like sages, and closer we lock our lines,
And deeper we clutch through the gelid gloom where never a sunbeam shines.

The Palace

© Robert William Service

Grimy men with picks and shovels
Who in darkness sweat unseen,
Climb from out your lousy hovels,
Build a palace for the Queen;
Praise the powers that be for giving
You a chance to make a living.

In the moonless, misty night, with my little pipe alight,
I am sitting by the camp-fire's fading cheer;
Oh, the dew is falling chill on the dim, deer-haunted hill,
And the breakers in the bay are moaning drear.

The Black Dudeen

© Robert William Service

Humping it here in the dug-out,
Sucking me black dudeen,
I'd like to say in a general way,
There's nothing like Nickyteen;

Winnie

© Robert William Service

Though it took all my bonus money.
And she'll be in the meadow there,
As long as I have dough for spending . . .
Gee! I'll take care of that old mare -
"Sweetheart! you'll have a happy ending."

Two Graves

© Robert William Service

To sepulcher my mouldy bones
I bough a pile of noble stones,
And half a year a sculptor spent
To hew my marble monument,
The stateliest to rear its head
In all this city of the dead.

Remorse

© Robert William Service

That scathing word I used in scorn
(Though half a century ago)
Comes back to me this April morn,
Like boomerang to work me woe;

Duello

© Robert William Service

Then silence followed like a spell,
And as the Briton sought to
Reply he wondered where the hell
His Gallic foe had got to.

Poet And Peer

© Robert William Service

They asked the Bard of Ayr to dine;
The banquet hall was fit and fine,
With gracing it a Lord;
The poet came; his face was grim
To find the place reserved for him
Was at the butler's board.

The Portrait

© Robert William Service

The portrait there above my bed
They tell me is a work of art;
My Wife,--since twenty years she's dead:
Her going nearly broke my heart.

The Host

© Robert William Service

Someone who has been kind to me;
Some power within, if not on high,
Who shaped my gentle destiny,
And led me pleasant pastures by:
Who taught me, whether gay or grave,
To love the life He gave.

The Rover

© Robert William Service

Weathered cheek and kindly eye, let the wanderer go by.
Woman-love and wistful heart, let the gipsy one depart.
For the farness and the road are his glory and his goad.
Oh, the lilt of youth and Spring! Eyes laugh and lips sing.

Tranquilism

© Robert William Service

I call myself a Tranquilist;
With deep detachment I exist,
From friction free;
While others court the gilded throng

Our Hero

"Flowers, only flowers -- bring me dainty posies,
Blossoms for forgetfulness," that was all he said;
So we sacked our gardens, violets and roses,
Lilies white and bluebells laid we on his bed.

The Ballad Of The Black Fox Skin

There was Claw-fingered Kitty and Windy Ike living the life of shame,
When unto them in the Long, Long Night came the man-who-had-no-name;
Bearing his prize of a black fox pelt, out of the Wild he came.

The Cow-Juice Cure

The clover was in blossom, an' the year was at the June,
When Flap-jack Billy hit the town, likewise O'Flynn's saloon.
The frost was on the fodder an' the wind was growin' keen,
When Billy got to seein' snakes in Sullivan's shebeen.

On The Wire

O God, take the sun from the sky!
It's burning me, scorching me up.
God, can't You hear my cry?
Water! A poor, little cup!

Four-Foot Shelf

'Come, see,' said he, 'my four-foot shelf,
A forty volume row;
And every one I wrote myself,
But that, of course, you know.'

Mike

My lead dog Mike was like a bear;
I reckon he was grizzly bred,
For when he reared up in the air
Ho over-topped me by a head.