Freedom poems
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The Song Of The Pacifist
© Robert William Service
What do they matter, our headlong hates, when we take the toll of our Dead?
Think ye our glory and gain will pay for the torrent of blood we have shed?
By the cheers of our Victory will the heart of the mother be comforted?
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.
Wistful
© Robert William Service
Oh how I'd be gay and glad
If a little house I had,
Snuggled in a shady lot,
With behind a garden plot;
At The Golden Pig
© Robert William Service
Where once with lads I scoffed my beer
The landlord's lass I've wed.
Now I am lord and master here;--
Thank God! the old man's dead.
My Mate
© Robert William Service
I've been sittin' starin', starin' at 'is muddy pair of boots,
And tryin' to convince meself it's 'im.
(Look out there, lad! That sniper -- 'e's a dysey when 'e shoots;
'E'll be layin' of you out the same as Jim.)
The Mystery Of Mister Smith
© Robert William Service
For supper we had curried tripe.
I washed the dishes, wound the clock;
Then for awhile I smoked my pipe -
Puff! Puff! We had no word of talk.
The Misses sewed - a sober pair;
Says I at last: "I need some air."
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.
The Release
© Robert William Service
To-day within a grog-shop near
I saw a newly captured linnet,
Who beat against his cage in fear,
And fell exhausted every minute;
The Spell Of The Yukon
© Robert William Service
I wanted the gold, and I sought it,
I scrabbled and mucked like a slave.
Was it famine or scurvy -- I fought it;
I hurled my youth into a grave.
Marie Antoinette
© Robert William Service
They told to Marie Antoinette:
"The beggers at your gate
Have eyes too sad for tears to wet,
And for your pity wait."
The Joy Of Being Poor
© Robert William Service
ILet others sing of gold and gear, the joy of being rich;
But oh, the days when I was poor, a vagrant in a ditch!
When every dawn was like a gem, so radiant and rare,
And I had but a single coat, and not a single care;
Captivity
© Robert William Service
O meadow lark, so wild and free,
It cannot be, it cannot be,
That men to merchandise your spell
Do close you in a wicker hell!
Sentimental Hangman
© Robert William Service
And sittin' in the pub o' night
I hears that prison bell,
And wonders if it's reely right
To haste a man to hell,
The Wanderlust
© Robert William Service
The Wanderlust has lured me to the seven lonely seas,
Has dumped me on the tailing-piles of dearth;
The Wanderlust has haled me from the morris chairs of ease,
Has hurled me to the ends of all the earth.
Enemy Conscript
© Robert William Service
What are we fighting for,
We fellows who go to war?
fighting for Freedom's sake!
(You give me the belly-ache.)
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,
Portent
© Robert William Service
Courage mes gars:
La guerre est proche.I plant my little plot of beans,
I sit beneath my cyprus tree;
I do not know what trouble means,
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.
Senses
© Rabindranath Tagore
Deliverance is not for me in renunciation.
I feel the embrace of freedom in a thousand bonds of delight. Thou ever pourest for me the fresh draught of thy wine of various
colours and fragrance, filling this earthen vessel to the brim. My world will light its hundred different lamps with thy flame
and place them before the altar of thy temple. No, I will never shut the doors of my senses.
Prisoner
© Rabindranath Tagore
`It was my master,' said the prisoner.
`I thought I could outdo everybody in the world in wealth and power,
and I amassed in my own treasure-house the money due to my king.
When sleep overcame me I lay upon the bed that was for my lord,
and on waking up I found I was a prisoner in my own treasure-house.'
