Life poems
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Two Graves
© Robert William Service
To sepulcher my mouldy bones
I bough a pile of noble stones,
And half a year a sculptor spent
To hew my marble monument,
The stateliest to rear its head
In all this city of the dead.
The Host
© Robert William Service
Someone who has been kind to me;
Some power within, if not on high,
Who shaped my gentle destiny,
And led me pleasant pastures by:
Who taught me, whether gay or grave,
To love the life He gave.
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.
Tranquilism
© Robert William Service
I call myself a Tranquilist;
With deep detachment I exist,
From friction free;
While others court the gilded throng
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.
An Olive Fire
© Robert William Service
An olive fire's a lovely thing;
Somehow it makes me think of Spring
As in my grate it over-spills
With dancing flames like daffodils.
Portrait
© Robert William Service
Because life's passing show
Is little to his mind,
There is a man I know
Indrawn from human kind.
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.'
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.
Bed Sitter
© Robert William Service
He stared at me with sad, hurt eyes,
That drab, untidy man;
And though my clients I despise
I do the best I can
The Harpy
© Robert William Service
There was a woman, and she was wise; woefully wise was she;
She was old, so old, yet her years all told were but a score and three;
And she knew by heart, from finish to start, the Book of Iniquity.
The Widow
© Robert William Service
And then (according to a nurse),
They heard him petulantly say:
"Adipose tissue is curse:
It's hard to pack them tripes away."
At last he did; sewed up the skin,
But left, some say, a swab within.
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!
The Heart Of The Sourdough
© Robert William Service
There where the mighty mountains bare their fangs unto the moon,
There where the sullen sun-dogs glare in the snow-bright, bitter noon,
And the glacier-glutted streams sweep down at the clarion call of June.
Babette
© Robert William Service
My Lady is dancing so lightly,
The belle of the Embassy Ball;
I lied as I kissed her politely,
And hurried away from it all.
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.
Infirmities
© Robert William Service
Because my teeth are feebly few
I cannot bolt my grub like you,
But have to chew and chew and chew
As you can see;
Orphan School
© Robert William Service
Full fifty merry maids I heard
One summer morn a-singing;
And each was like a joyous bird
With spring-clear not a-ringing.
