Robert William Service Poems

Drunk or sober Uncle Jim
Played the boy;
Never glum or sour or grim,
Oozin' joy.
...

The poppies that in Spring I sow,
In rings of radiance gleam and glow,
Like lords and ladies gay.
A joy are they to dream beside,
...

A mattock high he swung;
I watched him at his toil;
With never gulp of lung
He gashed the ruddy soil.
...

I grabbed the new Who's Who to see
My name - but it was not.
Said I: "The form they posted me
I filled and sent - so what?"
...

The Countess sprawled beside the sea
As naked a she well could be;
Indeed her only garments were
A "G" string and a brassière
...

The waves have a story to tell me,
As I lie on the lonely beach;
Chanting aloft in the pine-tops,
The wind has a lesson to teach;
...

When the boys come out from Lac Labiche in the lure of the early Spring,
To take the pay of the "Hudson's Bay", as their fathers did before,
They are all a-glee for the jamboree, and they make the Landing ring
With a whoop and a whirl, and a "Grab your girl", and a rip and a skip and a roar.
...

When I am dead I will not care
How future generations fare,
For I will be so unaware.
...

Mary and I were twenty-two
When we were wed;
A well-matched pair, right smart to view
The town's folk said.
...

I

Once, when a boy, I killed a cat.
I guess it's just because of that
...