All Poems

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Highland Hospitality

© Robert William Service

Unto his housemaid spoke the Laird:
"Tonight the Bishop is our guest;
The spare room must be warmed and aired:
To please him we will do our best.

Said I: "Don't think I grudge you breath;
I hate to spill your greenish gore,
But why did you invite your death
By straying on my bath-room floor?"
"It is because," said he (or she),
"Adventure is my destiny.

Birds Of A Feather

© Robert William Service

'Tis strange I took to lads like these,
On whom the good should frown;
Yet all with poetry would please
To wash his wassail down;
Their temples touched the starry way,
But O what feet of clay!

Sentimental Shark

© Robert William Service

Give me a cabin in the woods
Where not a human soul intrudes;
Where I can sit beside a stream
Beneath a balsam bough and deam,

Relax

© Robert William Service

Do you recall that happy bike
With bundles on our backs?
How near to heaven it was like
To blissfully relax!

Freethinker

© Robert William Service

Although the Preacher be a bore,
The Atheist is even more.I ain't religious worth a damn;
My views are reckoned to be broad;
And yet I shut up like a clam

The Absinthe Drinkers

© Robert William Service

He's yonder, on the terrace of the Cafe de la Paix,
The little wizened Spanish man, I see him every day.
He's sitting with his Pernod on his customary chair;
He's staring at the passers with his customary stare.

The Ghosts

© Robert William Service

Smith had a friend, we'll call him Brown; dearer than brothers were those two.
When in the wassail Smith would drown, Brown would rescue and pull him through.
When Brown was needful Smith would lend; so it fell as the years went by,
Each on the other would depend: then at the last Smith came to die.

Ambition

© Robert William Service

They brought the mighty chief to town;
They showed him strange, unwonted sights;
Yet as he wandered up and down,
He seemed to scorn their vain delights.

The Comforter

© Robert William Service

As I sat by my baby's bed
That's open to the sky,
There fluttered round and round my head
A radiant butterfly.

Innocence

© Robert William Service

The height of wisdom seems to me
That of a child;
So let my ageing vision be
Serene and mild.

The Hinterland

© Robert William Service

You speak to me, but does your speech
With truest truth your thought convey?
I listen to your words and each
Is what I wait to hear you say.

Dark Glasses

© Robert William Service

Sweet maiden, why disguise
The beauty of your eyes
With glasses black?
Although I'm well aware

Dark Trinity

© Robert William Service

Said I to Pain: "You would not dare
Do ill to me."
Said Pain: "Poor fool! Why should I care
Whom you may be?

Resignation

I'd hate to be centipede (of legs I've only two),
For if new trousers I should need (as oftentimes I do),
The bill would come to such a lot 'twould tax an Astorbilt,
Or else I'd have to turn a Scot and caper in a kilt.

Old Boy Scout

A bonny bird I found today
Mired in a melt of tar;
Its silky breast was silver-grey,
Its wings were cinnabar.
So still it lay right in the way
Of every passing car.

The Pigeon Shooting

They say that Monte Carlo is
A sunny place for shady people;
But I'm not in the gambling biz,
And sober as a parish steeple.

Death's Way

Old Man Death's a lousy heel who will not play the game:
Let Graveyard yawn and doom down crash, he'll sneer and turn away.
But when the sky with rapture rings and joy is like a flame,
Then Old Man Death grins evilly, and swings around to slay.

A Character

How often do I wish I were
What people call a character;
A ripe and cherubic old chappie
Who lives to make his fellows happy;

Take It Easy

When I was boxing in the ring
In 'Frisco back in ninety-seven,
I used to make five bucks a fling
To give as good as I was given.