All Poems

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Humility

© Robert William Service

My virtues in Carara stone
Cut carefully you all my scan;
Beneath I lie, a fetid bone,
The marble worth more than the man.

Miracles

© Robert William Service

Each time that I switch on the light
A Miracle it seems to me
That I should rediscover sight
And banish dark so utterly.
One moment I am bleakly blind,
The next--exultant life I find.

No Sunday Chicken

© Robert William Service

Sylvester is a widowed man,
Clerk in a hardware store;
I guess he does the best he can
To feed his kiddies four:
It sure is hard,--don't think it funny,
I've lately loaned him money.

Neighbours

© Robert William Service

My neighbour has a field of wheat
And I a rood of vine;
And he will give me bread to eat,
And I will give him wine.

Freedom's Fool

© Robert William Service

To hell with Government I say;
I'm sick of all the piddling pack.
I'd like to scram, get clean away,
And never, nevermore come back.

Intolerance

© Robert William Service

I have no brief for gambling, nay
The notion I express
That money earned 's the only way
To pay for happiness.

Robert William Service - Laughter

I Laugh at Life: its antics make for me a giddy games,
Where only foolish fellows take themselves with solemn aim.
I laugh at pomp and vanity, at riches, rank and pride;
At social inanity, at swager, swank and side.

Spartan Mother

© Robert William Service

My mother loved her horses and
Her hounds of pedigree;
She did not kiss the baby hand
I held to her in glee.

The Christmas Tree

© Robert William Service

In the dark and damp of the alley cold,
Lay the Christmas tree that hadn't been sold;
By a shopman dourly thrown outside;
With the ruck and rubble of Christmas-tide;

Benjamin Franklin

© Robert William Service

Franklin fathered bastards fourteen,
(So I read in the New Yorker);
If it's true, in terms of courtin'
Benny must have been a corker.

Prelude

© Robert William Service

They say that rhyme and rhythm are
Outmoded now.
I do not know, for I am far
From high of brow.

Facility

© Robert William Service

So easy 'tis to make a rhyme,
That did the world but know it,
Your coachman might Parnassus climb,
Your butler be a poet.

Cinderella

© Robert William Service

Cinderella in the street
In a ragged gown,
Sloven slippers on her feet,
Shames our tidy town;

Lord Let Me Live

© Robert William Service

Lord, let me linger, just for this,--
To win to utterness of bliss;
To see in every dawn design
Proof of Your Providence divine;
With night to find ablaze above,
Assurance of Your love.

Class-Mates

Joe Giles went in for grabbing gold,
And grovelled in the dirt;
He, too, looks prematurely old,
His gastric ulcers hurt:
Although he has a heap of dough.
I do not envy Joe.

Someone's Mother

Someone's Mother trails the street
Wrapt in rotted rags;
Broken slippers on her feet
Drearily she drags;

Soldier Boy

My soldier boy has crossed the sea
To fight the foeman;
But he'll come back to make of me
And honest woman.

The Twins

There were two brothers, John and James,
And when the town went up in flames,
To save the house of James dashed John,
Then turned, and lo! his own was gone.

The Living Dead

Since I have come to years sedate
I see with more and more acumen
The bitter irony of Fate,
The vanity of all things human.

The Sum-Up

It is not power and fame
That make success;
It is not rank or name
Rate happiness.