Great poems
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The Atavist
© Robert William Service
What are you doing here, Tom Thorne, on the white top-knot o' the world,
Where the wind has the cut of a naked knife and the stars are rapier keen?
Hugging a smudgy willow fire, deep in a lynx robe curled,
You that's a lord's own son, Tom Thorne -- what does your madness mean?
The Younger Son
© Robert William Service
If you leave the gloom of London and you seek a glowing land,
Where all except the flag is strange and new,
There's a bronzed and stalwart fellow who will grip you by the hand,
And greet you with a welcome warm and true;
The Parson's Son
© Robert William Service
This is the song of the parson's son, as he squats in his shack alone,
On the wild, weird nights, when the Northern Lights shoot up from the frozen zone,
And it's sixty below, and couched in the snow the hungry huskies moan:
Externalism
© Robert William Service
The Greatest Writer of to-day
(With Maupassant I almost set him)
Said to me in a weary way,
The last occasion that I met him:
The Squaw Man
© Robert William Service
The cow-moose comes to water, and the beaver's overbold,
The net is in the eddy of the stream;
The teepee stars the vivid sward with russet, red and gold,
And in the velvet gloom the fire's a-gleam.
The Ballad Of The Black Fox Skin
© Robert William Service
There was Claw-fingered Kitty and Windy Ike living the life of shame,
When unto them in the Long, Long Night came the man-who-had-no-name;
Bearing his prize of a black fox pelt, out of the Wild he came.
Over The Parapet
© Robert William Service
All day long when the shells sail over
I stand at the sandbags and take my chance;
But at night, at night I'm a reckless rover,
And over the parapet gleams Romance.
My Vineyard
© Robert William Service
To me at night the stars are vocal.
They say: 'Your planet's oh so local!
A speck of dust in heaven's ceiling;
Your faith divine a foolish feeling.
What odds if you are chaos hurled,
Yours is a silly little world.'
At Thirty-Five
© Robert William Service
Three score and ten, the psalmist saith,
And half my course is well-nigh run;
I've had my flout at dusty death,
I've had my whack of feast and fun.
Mc'Clusky's Nell
© Robert William Service
In Mike Maloney's Nugget bar the hooch was flowin' free,
An' One-eyed Mike was shakin' dice wi' Montreal Maree,
An roarin' rageful warning when the boys got overwild,
When peekin' through the double door he spied a tiny child.
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.
The Summing Up
© Robert William Service
When you have sailed the seven seas
And looped the ends of earth,
You'll long at last for slippered ease
Beside a bonny hearth;
Divine Detachment
© Robert William Service
One day the Great Designer sought
His Clerk of Birth and Death.
Said he: "Two souls are in my thought,
to whom I gave life-breath.
The Nostomaniac
© Robert William Service
On the ragged edge of the world I'll roam,
And the home of the wolf shall be my home,
And a bunch of bones on the boundless snows
The end of my trail . . . who knows, who knows!
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.
The Reckoning
© Robert William Service
It's fine to have a blow-out in a fancy restaurant,
With terrapin and canvas-back and all the wine you want;
To enjoy the flowers and music, watch the pretty women pass,
Smoke a choice cigar, and sip the wealthy water in your glass.
It's bully in a high-toned joint to eat and drink your fill,
But it's quite another matter when you
A Rolling Stone
© Robert William Service
There's sunshine in the heart of me,
My blood sings in the breeze;
The mountains are a part of me,
I'm fellow to the trees.
Dram-Shop Ditty
© Robert William Service
I drink my fill of foamy ale
I sing a song, I tell a tale,
I play the fiddle;
My throat is chronically dry,
Yet savant of a sort am I,
And Life's my riddle.
The Argument
© Robert William Service
Said Jock McBrown to Tam McSmith,
"A little bet I'm game to take on,
That I can scotch this Shakespeare myth
And prove Will just a stoodge for Bacon."
The Sightless Man
© Robert William Service
Out of the night a crash,
A roar, a rampart of light;
A flame that leaped like a lash,
Searing forever my sight;
Out of the night a flash,
Then, oh, forever the Night!
