Robert Service Poems

• 801.   Afternoon Tea
  As I was saying . . . (No, thank you; I never take cream with my tea;
  Cows weren't allowed in the trenches-got out of the habit, y'see.)As I was saying, our Colonel leaped up like a youngster of ten:
  
• 802.   Adventure
  Out of the wood my White Knight came:
  His eyes were bright with a bitter flame,As I clung to his stirrup leather;
  
• 803.   Adoption
  Because I was a woman lone
  And had of friends so few,I made two little ones my own,
  
• 804.   Accordion
  Some carol of the banjo, to its measure keeping time;
  Of viol or of lute some make a song.My battered old accordion, you're worthy of a rhyme,
  
• 805.   Abandoned Dog
  They dumped it on the lonely road,
  Then like a streak they sped;And as along the way I strode
  
• 806.   A Year Ago
  I'm sitting by the fire tonight,
  The cat purrs on the rug;The room's abrim with rosy light,
  
• 807.   A Verseman’s Apology
  Alas! I am only a rhymer,
  I don't know the meaning of Art;But I learned in my little school primer
  
• 808.   A Sourdough Story
  Hark to the Sourdough story, told at sixty below,
  When the pipes are lit and we smoke and spitInto the campfire glow.
  
• 809.   A Song Of Winter Weather
  It isn't the foe that we fear;
  It isn't the bullets that whine;It isn't the business career
  
• 810.   A Song Of The Sandbags
  No, Bill, I'm not a-spooning out no patriotic tosh
  (The cove be'ind the sandbags ain't a death-or-glory cuss).And though I strafes 'em good and ‘ard I doesn't ‘ate the Boche,
  
• 811.   A Song Of Suicide
  Deeming that I were better dead,
  “How shall I kill myself?” I said.Thus mooning by the river Seine
  
• 812.   A Song Of Success
  Ho! we were strong, we were swift, we were brave.
  Youth was a challenge, and Life was a fight.All that was best in us gladly we gave,
  
• 813.   A Song Of Sixty-five
  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,
  
• 814.   A Song For Kilts
  How grand the human race would be
  If every man would wear a kilt,A flirt of Tartan finery,
  
• 815.   A Snifter
  After working hard all day
  In the office,How much worse on homeward way
  
• 816.   A Rusty Nail
  I ran a nail into my hand,
  The wound was hard to heal;So bitter was the pain to stand
  
• 817.   A Rolling Stone
  There's sunshine in the heart of me,
  My blood sings in the breeze;The mountains are a part of me,
  
• 818.   A Pot Of Tea
  You make it in your mess-tin by the brazier's rosy gleam;
  You watch it cloud, then settle amber clear;You lift it with your bay'nit, and you sniff the fragrant steam;
  
• 819.   A Plea
  Why need we newer arms invent,
  Poor peoples to destroy?With what we have let's be content
  
• 820.   A Mediocre Man
  I'm just a mediocre man
  Of no high-brow pretence;A comfortable life I plan
  
• 821.   A Lyric Day
  I deem that there are lyric days
  So ripe with radiance and cheer,So rich with gratitude and praise
  
• 822.   A Little Prayer
  Let us be thankful, Lord, for little things-
  The song of birds, the rapture of the rose;Cloud-dappled skies, the laugh of limpid springs,
  
• 823.   A Hero
  Three times I had the lust to kill,
  To clutch a throat so young and fair,And squeeze with all my might until
  
• 824.   A Grain Of Sand
  If starry space no limit knows
  And sun succeeds to sun,There is no reason to suppose
  
• 825.   A Domestic Tragedy
  Clorinda met me on the way
  As I came from the train;Her face was anything but gay,
  
• 826.   A Character
  How often do I wish I were
  What people call a character;A ripe and cherubic old chappie
  
• 827.   A Casualty
  That boy I took in the car last night,
  With the body that awfully sagged away,And the lips blood-crisped, and the eyes flame-bright,
  
• 828.   A Canvas For A Crust
  Aye, Montecelli, that's the name.
  You may have heard of him perhaps.Yet though he never savoured fame,
  
• 829.   A Cabbage Patch
  Folk ask if I'm alive,
  Most think I'm not;Yet gaily I contrive
  
• 830.   A Busy Man
  This crowded life of God's good giving
  No man has relished more than I;I've been so goldarned busy living
  
• 831.   A Bachelor
  ‘Why keep a cow when I can buy,'
  Said he, ‘the milk I need,'I wanted to spit in his eye