All Poems
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Spats
© Robert William Service
When young I was a Socialist
Despite my tender years;
No blessed chance I ever missed
To slam the profiteers.
Comfort
© Robert William Service
Say! You've struck a heap of trouble --
Bust in business, lost your wife;
No one cares a cent about you,
You don't care a cent for life;
The Battle
© Robert William Service
She was the cuddly kind of Miss
A man can love to death;
But when I sought to steal a kiss
I wilted from a breath
With onion odour so intense
I lost my loving sense.
The Actor
© Robert William Service
Beside the hush of her his breath
Came with a sobbing sigh.
He babbled: 'Sweet, you play at death . . .
'Tis I who die.'
Expectation
© Robert William Service
My flask of wine was ruby red
And swift I ran my sweet to see;
With eyes that snapped delight I said:
"How mad with love a lad can be!"
The moon was laughing overhead;
I danced as nimbly as a flea.
Words
© Robert William Service
If on isle of the sea
I have to tarry,
With one book, let it be
A Dictionary.
Old Codger
© Robert William Service
Of garden truck he made his fare,
As his bright eyes bore witness;
Health was his habit and his care,
His hobby human fitness.
Death And Life
© Robert William Service
'Twas in the grave-yard's gruesome gloom
That May and I were mated;
We sneaked inside and on a tomb
Our love was consummated.
At The Parade
© Robert William Service
I cannot flap a flag
Or beat a drum;
Behind the mob I lag
With larynx dumb;
Alas! I fear I'm not
A Patriot.
Armistice Day (1953)
© Robert William Service
Don't jeer because we celebrate
Armistice Day,
Though thirty years of sorry fate
Have passed away.
The Song Of The Soldier-Born
© Robert William Service
Give me the scorn of the stars and a peak defiant;
Wail of the pines and a wind with the shout of a giant;
Night and a trail unknown and a heart reliant.
My Rival
© Robert William Service
Oh did she ever dream of Jack?
The boy who nevermore came back,
And never will, I heard that he
Was drowned in the China Sea.
The Other One
© Robert William Service
"Gather around me, children dear;
The wind is high and the night is cold;
Closer, little ones, snuggle near;
Let's seek a story of ages old;
The Damned
© Robert William Service
Behind blind walls I see them go,
Grim spectres of eternal woe,
Drained grey of hope, dead souls of self-slain,--
And yet I know with pang of pain
It must be so.
To A Tycoon
© Robert William Service
Since much has been your mirth
And fair your fate,
Friend, leave your lot of earth
Less desolate.
My Garret
© Robert William Service
Here is my Garret up five flights of stairs;
Here's where I deal in dreams and ply in fancies,
Here is the wonder-shop of all my wares,
My sounding sonnets and my red romances.
Here's where I challenge Fate and ring my rhymes,
And grope at glory -- aye, and starve at times.
Cowardice
© Robert William Service
And many an old cove such as I
Is troubled with the jitters,
And being as he's scared to die
Gives up his gin and bitters;
While dreading stomach ulcers he
Chucks dinner for high tea.
A Casualty
© Robert William Service
That boy I took in the car last night,
With the body that awfully sagged away,
And the lips blood-crisped, and the eyes flame-bright,
And the poor hands folded and cold as clay --
Oh, I've thought and I've thought of him all the day.
The Junior God
© Robert William Service
The Junior God looked from his place
In the conning towers of heaven,
And he saw the world through the span of space
Like a giant golf-ball driven.
My Madonna
© Robert William Service
I haled me a woman from the street,
Shameless, but, oh, so fair!
I bade her sit in the model's seat
And I painted her sitting there.
