All Poems

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"I'm going, Billy, old fellow. Hist, lad! Don't make any noise.
There's Boches to beat all creation, the pitch of a bomb away.
I've fixed the note to your collar, you've got to get back to my Boys,
You've got to get back to warn 'em before it's the break of day."

Weary

© Robert William Service

Some praise the Lord for Light,
The living spark;
I thank God for the Night
The healing dark.

Rhyme For My Tomb

© Robert William Service

Here lyeth one
Who loved the sun;
Who lived with zest,
Whose work was done,

A Sourdough Story

© Robert William Service

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.

The Judgement

© Robert William Service

The Judge looked down, his face was grim,
He scratched his ear;
The gangster's moll looked up at him
With eyes of fear.

The Dreamer

© Robert William Service

Hour after hour went by; a shadow slipped
From vasts of shadow to the camp-fire flame;
Gripping a rifle with a deadly aim,
A gaunt and hairy man with wolfish eyes . . .

The Dream

© Robert William Service

Said Will: "I'll stay and till the land."
Said Jack: "I'll sail the sea."
So one went forth kit-bag in hand,
The other ploughed the lea.

The Philistine And The Bohemian

© Robert William Service

And what is the moral of all this rot?
Don't try to be what you know you're not.
And if you're made on a muttonish plan,
Don't seek to seem a Bohemian;
And if to the goats your feet incline,
Don't try to pass for a Philistine.

Bill The Bomber

© Robert William Service

The poppies gleamed like bloody pools through cotton-woolly mist;
The Captain kept a-lookin' at the watch upon his wrist;
And there we smoked and squatted, as we watched the shrapnel flame;
'Twas wonnerful, I'm tellin' you, how fast them bullets came.

Conqueror

© Robert William Service

Though I defy the howling horde
As bloody-browed I smite,
Back to the wall with shattered sword
When darkly dooms the night;

Bank Robber

© Robert William Service

I much admire, I must admit,
The man who robs a Bank;
It takes a lot of guts and grit,
For lack of which I thank
The gods: a chap 'twould make of me
You wouldn't ask to tea.

Dark Truth

© Robert William Service

Birds have no consciousness of doom:
Yon thrush that serenades me daily
From scented snow of hawthorn bloom
Would not trill out his glee so gaily,
Could he foretell his songful breath
Would sadly soon be stilled in death.

My Hundred Books

© Robert William Service

A thousand books my library
Contains;
And all are primed, it seems to me
With brains.

Sailor Son

When you come home I'll not be round
To welcome you.
They'll take you to a grassy mound
So neat and new;
Where I'll be sleeping--O so sound!
The ages through.

Prayer

You talk o' prayer an' such -
Well, I jest don't know how;
I guess I got as much
Religion as a cow.

Fleurette

My leg? It's off at the knee.
Do I miss it? Well, some. You see
I've had it since I was born;
And lately a devilish corn.
(I rather chuckle with glee
To think how I've fooled that corn.)

The Last Supper

Marie Vaux of the Painted Lips,
And the mouth so mocking gay,
A wanton you to the finger-tips,
Who break men's hearts in play;

Bill's Grave

I'm gatherin' flowers by the wayside to lay on the grave of Bill;
I've sneaked away from the billet, 'cause Jim wouldn't understand;
'E'd call me a silly fat'ead, and larf till it made 'im ill,
To see me 'ere in the cornfield, wiv a big bookay in me 'and.