Work poems
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A Song Of Sixty-Five
© Robert William Service
Brave Thackeray has trolled of days when he was twenty-one,
And bounded up five flights of stairs, a gallant garreteer;
And yet again in mellow vein when youth was gaily run,
Has dipped his nose in Gascon wine, and told of Forty Year.
The Tunnel
© Robert William Service
Toil's a tunnel, there's no way out
For fellows, the like o' me;
A beggar wi' only a crust an' a clout
At the worst o' the worst is free;
To The Man Of The High North
© Robert William Service
My rhymes are rough, and often in my rhyming
I've drifted, silver-sailed, on seas of dream,
Hearing afar the bells of Elfland chiming,
Seeing the groves of Arcadie agleam.
The Man From Eldorado
© Robert William Service
He's the man from Eldorado, and he's just arrived in town,
In moccasins and oily buckskin shirt.
He's gaunt as any Indian, and pretty nigh as brown;
He's greasy, and he smells of sweat and dirt.
Learn To Like
© Robert William Service
School yourself to savour most
Joys that have but little cost;
Prove the best of life is free,
Sun and stars and sky and sea;
Jane
© Robert William Service
My daughter Jane makes dresses
For beautiful Princesses;
But though she's plain is Jane,
Of needlework she's vain,
And makes such pretty things
For relatives of Kings.
The Wee Shop
© Robert William Service
She risked her all, they told me, bravely sinking
The pinched economies of thirty years;
And there the little shop was, meek and shrinking,
The sum of all her dreams and hopes and fears.
Rhyme For My Tomb
© Robert William Service
Here lyeth one
Who loved the sun;
Who lived with zest,
Whose work was done,
The Dreamer
© Robert William Service
Hour after hour went by; a shadow slipped
From vasts of shadow to the camp-fire flame;
Gripping a rifle with a deadly aim,
A gaunt and hairy man with wolfish eyes . . .
Bill The Bomber
© Robert William Service
The poppies gleamed like bloody pools through cotton-woolly mist;
The Captain kept a-lookin' at the watch upon his wrist;
And there we smoked and squatted, as we watched the shrapnel flame;
'Twas wonnerful, I'm tellin' you, how fast them bullets came.
The Ballad Of Lenin's Tomb
© Robert William Service
This is the yarn he told me
As we sat in Casey's Bar,
That Rooshun mug who scammed from the jug
In the Land of the Crimson Star;
That Soviet guy with the single eye,
And the face like a flaming scar.
Lost Kitten
© Robert William Service
Two men I saw reel from a bar
And stumble down the street;
Coarse and uncouth as workmen are,
They walked with wobbly feet.
A Snifter
© Robert William Service
After working hard all day
In the office,
How much worse on homeward way
My old cough is!
Self-Made Man
© Robert William Service
A hundred people I employed,
But when they struck for higher pay,
I was so damnably annoyed
I told them they could stay away.
Mactavish
© Robert William Service
I do not write for love of pelf,
Nor lust for phantom fame;
I do not rhyme to please myself,
Nor yet to win acclaim:
Patches
© Robert William Service
So each boy asked his Ma to match
With bluer blue my super-patch,
And when to school they came en masse,
It was the emblem of our class,
Admired by every bonnie lass.
Pullman Porter
© Robert William Service
The porter in the Pullman car
Was charming, as they sometimes are.
He scanned my baggage tags: "Are you
The man who wrote of Lady Lou?"
The Song Of The Wage-Slave
© Robert William Service
When the long, long day is over, and the Big Boss gives me my pay,
I hope that it won't be hell-fire, as some of the parsons say.
And I hope that it won't be heaven, with some of the parsons I've met --
All I want is just quiet, just to rest and forget.
The Thinker
© Robert William Service
Of all the men I ever knew
The tinkingest was Uncle Jim;
If there were any chores to do
We couldn't figure much on him.
Pragmatic
© Robert William Service
When young I was an Atheist,
Yea, pompous as a pigeon
No opportunity I missed
To satirize religion.
