Robert William Service Poems

A beggar in the street I saw,
Who held a hand like withered claw,
As cold as clay;
But as I had no silver groat
...

When you're lost in the Wild, and you're scared as a child,
And Death looks you bang in the eye,
And you're sore as a boil, it's according to Hoyle
To cock your revolver and . . . die.
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Let us have birthdays every day,
(I had the thought while I was shaving)
Because a birthday should be gay,
And full of grace and good behaving.
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Today I opened wide my eyes,
And stared with wonder and surprise,
To see beneath November skies
An apple blossom peer;
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After working hard all day
In the office,
How much worse on homeward way
My old cough is!
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When I was daft (as urchins are),
And full if fairy lore,
I aimed an arrow at a star
And hit - the barnyard door.
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I am a stout materialist;
With abstract terms I can't agree,
And so I've made a little list
Of words that don't make sense to me.
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Hark to the Sourdough story, told at sixty below,
When the pipes are lit and we smoke and spit
Into the campfire glow.
Rugged are we and hoary, and statin' a general rule,
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It isn't the foe that we fear;
It isn't the bullets that whine;
It isn't the business career
Of a shell, or the bust of a mine;
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I keep collecting books I know
I'll never, never read;
My wife and daughter tell me so,
And yet I never head.
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