All Poems

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Comrades

© Robert William Service

Oh bear with me, for I am old
And count on fingers five
The years this pencil I may hold
And hope to be alive;

Unpenitent, I grieve to state,
Two good men stood by heaven's gate,
Saint Peter coming to await.
The stopped the Keeper of the Keys,
Saying: "What suppliants are these,
Who wait me not on bended knees?

Negress In Notre Dame

© Robert William Service

The aged Queen who passed away
Had sixty servants, so they say;
Twice sixty hands her shoes to tie:
Two soapy ones have I.

The Mole

© Robert William Service

Said he: "I'll dive deep in the Past,
And write a book of direful days
When summer skies were overcast
With smoke of humble hearths ablaze;

Men Of The High North

© Robert William Service

Men of the High North, the wild sky is blazing;
Islands of opal float on silver seas;
Swift splendors kindle, barbaric, amazing;
Pale ports of amber, golden argosies.

Old Engine Driver

© Robert William Service

For five and twenty years I've run
A famous train;
But now my spell of speed is done,
No more I'll strain

Amateur Poet

© Robert William Service

You see that sheaf of slender books
Upon the topmost shelf,
At which no browser ever looks,
Because they're by . . . myself;

Evenfall

© Robert William Service

When day is done I steal away
To fold my hands in rest,
And of my hours this moment grey
I love the best;

Bonehead Bill

© Robert William Service

I wonder 'oo and wot 'e was,
That 'Un I got so slick.
I couldn't see 'is face because
The night was 'ideous thick.

Nature's Way

© Robert William Service

To tribulations of mankind
Dame Nature is indifferent;
To human sorrow she is blind,
And deaf to human discontent.

Gipsy

© Robert William Service

The poppies that in Spring I sow,
In rings of radiance gleam and glow,
Like lords and ladies gay.
A joy are they to dream beside,
As in the air of eventide
They flutter, dip and sway.

You And Me

I'm part of people I have known
And they are part of me;
The seeds of thought that I have sown
In other minds I see.
There's something of me in the throne
And in the gallows tree.

Euthansia

A sea-gull with a broken wing,
I found upon the kelp-strewn shore.
It sprawled and gasped; I sighed: "Poor thing!
I fear your flying days are o'er;
Sad victim of a savage gun,
So ends your soaring in the sun."

Warsaw

ENGLAND! they cried for aid, and cried in vain.
Vain was their valour, emptily they cried.
Bleeding, they saw their Cry crucified. . . .
O splendid soldier, by the last lone train,
To-day would you flame forth to fray me place?
Or - would you curse and spit into my face?

The Death Of Marie Toro

And then last week I missed her, and they found her in the street
One morning early, huddled down, for it was freezing cold;
But when they raised her ragged shawl her face was still and sweet;
Some bits of broken bloom were clutched within her icy hold.
That's all. . . . Ah yes, they say that saw: her blue, wide-open eyes
Were beautiful with joy again, with radiant surprise. . . .