Robert William Service Poems

Don't cheer, damn you! Don't cheer!
Silence! Your bitterest tear
Is fulsomely sweet to-day. . . .
Down on your knees and pray.
...

I loved to toy with tuneful rhyme,
My fancies into verse to weave;
For as I walked my words would chime
So bell-like I could scarce believe;
...

So often in the mid of night
I wake me in my bed
With utter panic of affright
To find my feet are dead;
...

I think I'll buy a little field,
Though scant am I of pelf,
And hold the hope that it may yield
A living for myself;
...

In youth I longed to paint
The loveliness I saw;
And yet by dire constraint
I had to study Law.
...

I took a contract to bury the body of blasphemous Bill MacKie,
Whenever, wherever or whatsoever the manner of death he die--
Whether he die in the light o' day or under the peak-faced moon;
In cabin or dance-hall, camp or dive, mucklucks or patent shoon;
...

'Come, see,' said he, 'my four-foot shelf,
A forty volume row;
And every one I wrote myself,
But that, of course, you know.'
...

Hurrah! I'm off to Finistere, to Finistere, to Finistere;
My satchel's swinging on my back, my staff is in my hand;
I've twenty louis in my purse, I know the sun and sea are there,
And so I'm starting out to-day to tramp the golden land.
...

Could Fate ordain a lot for me
Beyond all human ills,
I think that I would choose to be
A shephard of the hills;
...

Between the mountain and the sea
I've made a happy landing;
And here a peace has come to me
That passeth understanding;
...