Life poems
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Julie Claire
© Robert William Service
Oh Julie Claire was very fair,
Yet generous as well,
And many a lad of metal had
A saucy tale to tell
While The Bannock Bakes
© Robert William Service
Light up your pipe again, old chum, and sit awhile with me;
I've got to watch the bannock bake -- how restful is the air!
You'd little think that we were somewhere north of Sixty-three,
Though where I don't exactly know, and don't precisely care.
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!
Hobo
© Robert William Service
A father's pride I used to know,
A mother's love was mine;
For swinish husks I let them go,
And bedded with the swine.
Annuitant
© Robert William Service
Oh I am neither rich nor poor,
No worker I dispoil;
Yet I am glad to be secure
From servitude and toil.
The Twins Of Lucky Strike
© Robert William Service
Sure 'tis the love of childer makes for savin' of the soul,
And in Maternity the hope of humankind we see;
So though she wears no halo, headin' out for Heaven's goal,
Awheelin' of a double pram,--bless Montreal Maree!
Room 5: The Concert Singer
© Robert William Service
I'm one of these haphazard chaps
Who sit in cafes drinking;
A most improper taste, perhaps,
Yet pleasant, to my thinking.
Jobson Of The Star
© Robert William Service
Within a pub that's off the Strand and handy to the bar,
With pipe in mouth and mug in hand sat Jobson of the Star.
"Come, sit ye down, ye wond'ring wight, and have a yarn," says he.
"I can't," says I, "because to-night I'm off to Tripoli;
Five-Per-Cent
© Robert William Service
Because I have ten thousand pounds I sit upon my stern,
And leave my living tranquilly for other folks to earn.
For in some procreative way that isn't very clear,
Ten thousand pounds will breed, they say, five hundred every year.
My Trinity
© Robert William Service
For all good friends who care to read,
here let me lyre my living creed . . .One: you may deem me Pacifist,
For I've no sympathy with strife.
Like hell I hate the iron fist,
Privacy
© Robert William Service
Oh you who are shy of the popular eye,
(Though most of us seek to survive it)
Just think of the goldfish who wanted to die
Because she could never be private.
The Song Of The Camp-Fire
© Robert William Service
Gather round me, boy and grey-beard, frontiersman of every kind.
Few are you, and far and lonely, yet an army forms behind:
By your camp-fires shall they know you, ashes scattered to the wind.
The End Of The Trail
© Robert William Service
Life, you've been mighty good to me,
Yet here's the end of the trail;
No more mountain, moor and sea,
No more saddle and sail.
Brave New World
© Robert William Service
One spoke: "Come, let us gaily go
With laughter, love and lust,
Since in a century or so
We'll all be boneyard dust.
Clancy Of The Mounted Police
© Robert William Service
Livid-lipped was the valley, still as the grave of God;
Misty shadows of mountain thinned into mists of cloud;
Corpselike and stark was the land, with a quiet that crushed and awed,
And the stars of the weird sub-arctic glimmered over its shroud.
The Wood-Cutter
© Robert William Service
The sky is like an envelope,
One of those blue official things;
And, sealing it, to mock our hope,
The moon, a silver wafer, clings.
What shall we find when death gives leave
To read--our sentence or reprieve?
My Favoured Fare
© Robert William Service
Some poets sing of scenery;
Some to fair maids make sonnets sweet.
A fig for love and greenery,
Be mine a song of things to eat.
The Tramps
© Robert William Service
Can you recall, dear comrade, when we tramped God's land together,
And we sang the old, old Earth-song, for our youth was very sweet;
When we drank and fought and lusted, as we mocked at tie and tether,
Along the road to Anywhere, the wide world at our feet --
Careers
© Robert William Service
I knew three sisters,--all were sweet;
Wishful to wed was I,
And wondered which would mostly meet
The matrimonial tie.
