Car poems
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Little Moccasins
© Robert William Service
Come out, O Little Moccasins, and frolic on the snow!
Come out, O tiny beaded feet, and twinkle in the light!
I'll play the old Red River reel, you used to love it so:
Awake, O Little Moccasins, and dance for me to-night!
The Lunger
© Robert William Service
An' now when the nights are long,
How I miss his cheery song!
How I sigh an' wish him back!
Happy Jack! Oh, Happy Jack!
Milking Time
© Robert William Service
There's a drip of honeysuckle in the deep green lane;
There's old Martin jogging homeward on his worn old wain;
There are cherry petals falling, and a cuckoo calling, calling,
And a score of larks (God bless 'em) . . . but it's all pain, pain.
Decadence
© Robert William Service
Thinks I: Is all that talk a bluff -
Their dukes and kings and courtly stuff:
The way she ate, why one would say
She hadn't broken fast all day.
Forgotten Master
© Robert William Service
As you gaze beyond the bay
With such wanness in your eyes,
You who have out-stayed your day,
Seeing other stars arise,
Slender though your lifehold be,
Still you dream beside the sea.
Unholy Trinity
© Robert William Service
Though Virtue hurt you Vice is nice;
Aye, Parson says it's wrong,
Yet for my pleasing I'll suffice
With Women, Wine and Song.
The Rhyme Of The Restless Ones
© Robert William Service
Oh, they shook us off and shipped us o'er the foam,
To the larger lands that lure a man to roam;
And we took the chance they gave
Of a far and foreign grave,
And we bade good-by for evermore to home.
Cardiac
© Robert William Service
A mattock high he swung;
I watched him at his toil;
With never gulp of lung
He gashed the ruddy soil.
Thought I, I'd give my wealth
To have his health.
The Hearth-Stone
© Robert William Service
A hundred hollow years will speed
As I decay;
And I'll be comrade to the weed,
Kin to the clay;
Until some hind in homing-need
Will pass my way.
Beachcomber
© Robert William Service
When I have come with happy heart to sixty years and ten,
I'll buy a boat and sail away upon a summer sea;
And in a little lonely isle that's far and far from men,
In peace and praise I'll spend the days the Gods allow to me.
The Man From Athabaska
© Robert William Service
Oh the wife she tried to tell me that 'twas nothing but the thrumming
Of a wood-pecker a-rapping on the hollow of a tree;
And she thought that I was fooling when I said it was the drumming
Of the mustering of legions, and 'twas calling unto me;
'Twas calling me to pull my freight and hop across the sea.
Finality
© Robert William Service
When I am dead I will not care
How future generations fare,
For I will be so unaware.
My Centenarian
© Robert William Service
A hundred years is a lot of living
I've often thought. and I'll know, maybe,
Some day if the gods are good in giving,
And grant me to turn the century.
The Prospector
© Robert William Service
You will find a tattered tent-pole with a ragged robe below it;
You will find a rusted gold-pan on the sod;
You will find the claim I'm seeking, with my bones as stakes to show it;
But I've sought the last Recorder, and He's--God.
My Calendar
© Robert William Service
From off my calendar today
A leaf I tear;
So swiftly passes smiling May
Without a care.
Finistere
© Robert William Service
Hurrah! I'm off to Finistere, to Finistere, to Finistere;
My satchel's swinging on my back, my staff is in my hand;
I've twenty louis in my purse, I know the sun and sea are there,
And so I'm starting out to-day to tramp the golden land.
The Ballad Of Soulful Sam
© Robert William Service
You want me to tell you a story, a yarn of the firin' line,
Of our thin red kharki 'eroes, out there where the bullets whine;
Out there where the bombs are bustin',
and the cannons like 'ell-doors slam --
Just order another drink, boys, and I'll tell you of Soulful Sam.
The Man Who Knew
© Robert William Service
The Dreamer visioned Life as it might be,
And from his dream forthright a picture grew,
A painting all the people thronged to see,
And joyed therein -- till came the Man Who Knew,
Saying: "'Tis bad! Why do ye gape, ye fools!
He painteth not according to the schools."
The Baldness Of Chewed-Ear
© Robert William Service
When Chewed-ear Jenkins got hitched up to Guinneyveer McGee,
His flowin' locks, ye recollect, wuz frivolous an' free;
But in old Hymen's jack-pot, it's a most amazin' thing,
Them flowin' locks jest disappeared like snow-balls in the Spring;
Jest seemed to wilt an' fade away like dead leaves in the Fall,
An' left old Chewed-ear balder than a white-washed cannon ball.
The Sacrifices
© Robert William Service
Twin boys I bore, my joy, my care,
My hope, my life they were to me;
Their father, dashing, debonair,
Fell fighting at Gallipoli.
