Life 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.
Shakespeare And Cervantes
© Robert William Service
Is it not strange that on this common date,
Two titans of their age, aye of all Time,
Together should renounce this mortal state,
And rise like gods, unsullied and sublime?
Should mutually render up the ghost,
And hand n hand join Jove's celestial host?
Baby Sitter
© Robert William Service
My way I've won from woe to weal,
And hard has been the fight;
Yet in my ingle-nook I feel
A wondrous peace to-night;
And over me serenely steal
Warm waves of love and light.
Sensibility
© Robert William Service
Well, anyway, you know the why
We are so pally, cats and I;
So if you have the gift of shame,
O Fellow-sinner, be the same.
Son
© Robert William Service
He hurried away, young heart of joy, under our Devon sky!
And I watched him go, my beautiful boy, and a weary woman was I.
For my hair is grey, and his was gold; he'd the best of his life to live;
And I'd loved him so, and I'm old, I'm old; and he's all I had to give.
Enemy Conscript
© Robert William Service
What are we fighting for,
We fellows who go to war?
fighting for Freedom's sake!
(You give me the belly-ache.)
Spanish Men
© Robert William Service
The Men of Seville are, they say,
The laziest of Spain.
Consummate artists in delay,
Allergical to strain;
Second Childhood
© Robert William Service
When I go on my morning walk,
Because I'm mild,
If I be in the mood to talk
I choose a child.
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.
Eighty Not Out
© Robert William Service
In the gay, gleamy morn I adore to go walking,
And oh what sweet people I meet on my way!
I hail them with joy for I love to be talking,
Although I have nothing important to say.
Longevity
© Robert William Service
Said Brown: 'I can't afford to die
For I have bought annuity,
And every day of living I
Have money coming in to me:
While others toil to make their bread
I make mine by not being dead.'
Murderers
© Robert William Service
He was my best and oldest friend.
I'd known him all my life.
And yet I'm sure towards the end
He knew I loved his wife,
And wonder, wonder if it's why
He came so dreadfully to die.
A Grain Of Sand
© Robert William Service
If starry space no limit knows
And sun succeeds to sun,
There is no reason to suppose
Our earth the only one.
The Trapper's Christmas Eve
© Robert William Service
It's mighty lonesome-like and drear.
Above the Wild the moon rides high,
And shows up sharp and needle-clear
The emptiness of earth and sky;
Sentimental Shark
© Robert William Service
Give me a cabin in the woods
Where not a human soul intrudes;
Where I can sit beside a stream
Beneath a balsam bough and deam,
The Absinthe Drinkers
© Robert William Service
He's yonder, on the terrace of the Cafe de la Paix,
The little wizened Spanish man, I see him every day.
He's sitting with his Pernod on his customary chair;
He's staring at the passers with his customary stare.
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 Hinterland
© Robert William Service
You speak to me, but does your speech
With truest truth your thought convey?
I listen to your words and each
Is what I wait to hear you say.
