Home poems
/ page 408 of 465 /
The Low-Down White
© Robert William Service
This is the pay-day up at the mines, when the bearded brutes come down;
There's money to burn in the streets to-night, so I've sent my klooch to town,
With a haggard face and a ribband of red entwined in her hair of brown.
Cocotte
© Robert William Service
When a girl's sixteen, and as poor as she's pretty,
And she hasn't a friend and she hasn't a home,
Heigh-ho! She's as safe in Paris city
As a lamb night-strayed where the wild wolves roam;
The Ballad Of The Brand
© Robert William Service
'Twas up in a land long famed for gold, where women were far and rare,
Tellus, the smith, had taken to wife a maiden amazingly fair;
Tellus, the brawny worker in iron, hairy and heavy of hand,
Saw her and loved her and bore her away from the tribe of a Southern land;
Deeming her worthy to queen his home and mother him little ones,
That the name of Tellus, the master smith, might live in his stalwart sons.
Retired Shopman
© Robert William Service
He had the grocer's counter-stoop,
That little man so grey and neat;
His moustache had a doleful droop,
He hailed me in the slushy street.
Missis Moriarty's Boy
© Robert William Service
Missis Moriarty called last week, and says she to me, says she:
"Sure the heart of me's broken entirely now -- it's the fortunate woman you are;
You've still got your Dinnis to cheer up your home, but me Patsy boy where is he?
Lyin' alone, cold as a stone, kilt in the weariful wahr.
Atoll
© Robert William Service
The woes of men beyond my ken
Mean nothing more to me.
Behold my world, and Eden hurled
From Heaven to the Sea;
Florentine Pilgrim
© Robert William Service
"I'll do the old dump in a day,"
He told me in his brittle way.
"Two more, I guess, I'll give to Rome
Before I hit the trail for home;
But while I'm there I kindo' hope
To have an audience with the Pope."
Bird Sanctuary
© Robert William Service
Between the cliff-rise and the beach
A slip of emerald I own;
With fig and olive, almond, peach,
cherry and plum-tree overgrown;
The Missal Makers
© Robert William Service
To visit the Escurial
We took a motor bus,
And there a guide mercurial
Took charge of us.
Alias Bill
© Robert William Service
We bore him to his boneyard lot
One afternoon at three;
The clergyman was on the spot
To earn his modest fee.
Little Puddleton
© Robert William Service
Let others sing of Empire and of pomp beyond the sea,
A song of Little Puddleton is good enough for me,
A song of kindly living, and of coming home to tea.
May Miracle
© Robert William Service
On this festive first of May,
Wending wistfully my way
Three sad sights I saw today.
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.
Poet And Peer
© Robert William Service
They asked the Bard of Ayr to dine;
The banquet hall was fit and fine,
With gracing it a Lord;
The poet came; his face was grim
To find the place reserved for him
Was at the butler's board.
The Rover
© Robert William Service
Weathered cheek and kindly eye, let the wanderer go by.
Woman-love and wistful heart, let the gipsy one depart.
For the farness and the road are his glory and his goad.
Oh, the lilt of youth and Spring! Eyes laugh and lips sing.
Four-Foot Shelf
© Robert William Service
'Come, see,' said he, 'my four-foot shelf,
A forty volume row;
And every one I wrote myself,
But that, of course, you know.'
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.
The Lark
© Robert William Service
From wrath-red dawn to wrath-red dawn,
The guns have brayed without abate;
And now the sick sun looks upon
The bleared, blood-boltered fields of hate
Music In The Bush
© Robert William Service
O'er the dark pines she sees the silver moon,
And in the west, all tremulous, a star;
And soothing sweet she hears the mellow tune
Of cow-bells jangled in the fields afar.
Ruins
© Robert William Service
Ruins in Rome are four a penny,
And here along the Appian Way
I see the monuments of many
Esteemed almighty in their day. . . .
