Life poems
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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.
Fighting Mac
© Robert William Service
A pistol shot rings round and round the world;
In pitiful defeat a warrior lies.
A last defiance to dark Death is hurled,
A last wild challenge shocks the sunlit skies.
Alone he falls, with wide, wan, woeful eyes:
Eyes that could smile at death -- could not face shame.
The Buyers
© Robert William Service
Father drank himself to death,--
Quite enjoyed it.
Urged to draw a sober breath
He'd avoid it.
Old Trouper
© Robert William Service
I was Mojeska's leading man
And famous parts I used to play,
But now I do the best I can
To earn my bread from day to day;
Henry
© Robert William Service
Mary and I were twenty-two
When we were wed;
A well-matched pair, right smart to view
The town's folk said.
For twenty years I have been true
To nuptial bed.
Unholy Trinity
© Robert William Service
Though Virtue hurt you Vice is nice;
Aye, Parson says it's wrong,
Yet for my pleasing I'll suffice
With Women, Wine and Song.
The Soldier Of Fortune
© Robert William Service
"And now, my butchers, I embrace my fate.
Come! let my heart's blood slake the thirsty sod.
Curst be the life you offer! Glut your hate!
Strike! Strike, you dogs! I'll not deny my God."
Madam La Maquise
© Robert William Service
Said Hongray de la Glaciere unto his proud Papa:
"I want to take a wife mon Père," The Marquis laughed: "Ha! Ha!
And whose, my son?" he slyly said; but Hongray with a frown
Cried, "Fi! Papa, I mean - to wed, I want to settle down."
White-Collar Spaniard
© Robert William Service
We have no heart for civil strife,
Our burdens we prefer to bear;
We long to live a peaceful life
And claim of happiness our share.
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.
Two Men (J. L. And R. B.)
© Robert William Service
In the Northland there were three
Pukka Pliers of the pen;
Two of them had Fame in fee
And were loud and lusty men;
By them like a shrimp was I -
Yet alas! they had to die.
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!
Pantheist
© Robert William Service
Lolling on a bank of thyme
Drunk with Spring I made this rhyme. . . .Though peoples perish in defeat,
And races suffer to survive,
The sunshine never was so sweet,
The Hearth-Stone
© Robert William Service
A hundred hollow years will speed
As I decay;
And I'll be comrade to the weed,
Kin to the clay;
Until some hind in homing-need
Will pass my way.
Beachcomber
© Robert William Service
When I have come with happy heart to sixty years and ten,
I'll buy a boat and sail away upon a summer sea;
And in a little lonely isle that's far and far from men,
In peace and praise I'll spend the days the Gods allow to me.
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.
Jean Desprez
© Robert William Service
Oh ye whose hearts are resonant, and ring to War's romance,
Hear ye the story of a boy, a peasant boy of France;
A lad uncouth and warped with toil, yet who, when trial came,
Could feel within his soul upleap and soar the sacred flame;
Could stand upright, and scorn and smite, as only heroes may:
Oh, harken! Let me try to tell the tale of Jean Desprez.
Grey Gull
© Robert William Service
'Twas on an iron, icy day
I saw a pirate gull down-plane,
And hover in a wistful way
Nigh where my chickens picked their grain.
Katie Drummond
© Robert William Service
They say he soared to starry fame,
Romance flowed from his pen;
A prince of poets he became,
Pride of his fellow men:
My breast was pillow for his head,
Yet naught of his I've read.
