Hope poems
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Room 7: The Coco-Fiend
© Robert William Service
Heart broken to the room I crept,
To mother's side. All still . . . she slept . . .
I bent, I sought to raise her head . . .
"Oh, God, have pity!" she was dead.
Sunshine
© Robert William Service
Flat as a drum-head stretch the haggard snows;
The mighty skies are palisades of light;
The stars are blurred; the silence grows and grows;
Vaster and vaster vaults the icy night.
Here in my sleeping-bag I cower and pray:
"Silence and night, have pity! stoop and slay."
My Inner Life
© Robert William Service
'Tis true my garments threadbare are,
And sorry poor I seem;
But inly I am richer far
Than any poet's dream.
Frustration
© Robert William Service
Gazing to gold seraph wing,
With wistful wonder in my eyes,
A blue-behinded ape, I swing
Upon the palms of Paradise.
Spanish Men
© Robert William Service
The Men of Seville are, they say,
The laziest of Spain.
Consummate artists in delay,
Allergical to strain;
A Bachelor
© Robert William Service
'Why keep a cow when I can buy,'
Said he, 'the milk I need,'
I wanted to spit in his eye
Of selfishness and greed;
But did not, for the reason he
Was stronger than I be.
Old Crony
© Robert William Service
Said she: 'Although my husband Jim
Is with his home content,
I never should have married him,
We are so different.
Birds Of A Feather
© Robert William Service
'Tis strange I took to lads like these,
On whom the good should frown;
Yet all with poetry would please
To wash his wassail down;
Their temples touched the starry way,
But O what feet of clay!
The Ghosts
© Robert William Service
Smith had a friend, we'll call him Brown; dearer than brothers were those two.
When in the wassail Smith would drown, Brown would rescue and pull him through.
When Brown was needful Smith would lend; so it fell as the years went by,
Each on the other would depend: then at the last Smith came to die.
The Pigeon Shooting
© Robert William Service
They say that Monte Carlo is
A sunny place for shady people;
But I'm not in the gambling biz,
And sober as a parish steeple.
A Character
© Robert William Service
How often do I wish I were
What people call a character;
A ripe and cherubic old chappie
Who lives to make his fellows happy;
It Is Later Than You Think
© Robert William Service
Lone amid the cafe's cheer,
Sad of heart am I to-night;
Dolefully I drink my beer,
But no single line I write.
My Rocking-Chair
© Robert William Service
When I am old and worse for wear
I want to buy a rocking-chair,
And set it on a porch where shine
The stars of morning-glory vine;
A Song Of Winter Weather
© Robert William Service
It isn't the foe that we fear;
It isn't the bullets that whine;
It isn't the business career
Of a shell, or the bust of a mine;
Teddy Bear
© Robert William Service
O Teddy Bear! with your head awry
And your comical twisted smile,
You rub your eyes -- do you wonder why
You've slept such a long, long while?
New Year's Eve
© Robert William Service
It's cruel cold on the water-front, silent and dark and drear;
Only the black tide weltering, only the hissing snow;
And I, alone, like a storm-tossed wreck, on this night of the glad New Year,
Shuffling along in the icy wind, ghastly and gaunt and slow.
Fulfilment
© Robert William Service
I sing of starry dreams come true,
Of hopes fulfilled;
Of rich reward beyond my due,
Of harvest milled.
Nature's Touch
© Robert William Service
In kindergarten classed
Dislike they knew;
And as the years went past
It grew and grew;
My Dentist
© Robert William Service
Sitting in the dentist's chair,
Wishing that I wasn't there,
To forget and pass the time
I have made this bit of rhyme.
The Pencil Seller
© Robert William Service
O God! I stumbled blindly from the hall;
The city crashed on me, the fiendish sounds
Of cruelty and strife, but over all
"Three thousand pounds!" I heard; "Three thousand pounds!"
