Robert William Service Poems

I count each day a little life,
With birth and death complete;
I cloister it from care and strife
And keep it sane and sweet.
...

No matter how he toil and strive
The fate of every man alive
With luck will be to lie alone,
His empty name cut in a stone.
...

We bore him to his boneyard lot
One afternoon at three;
The clergyman was on the spot
To earn his modest fee.
...

(France, August first, 1914)

Far and near, high and clear,
Hark to the call of War!
...

Unto his housemaid spoke the Laird:
"Tonight the Bishop is our guest;
The spare room must be warmed and aired:
To please him we will do our best.
...

I pawned my sick wife's wedding ring,
To drink and make myself a beast.
I got the most that it would bring,
Of golden coins the very least.
...

Hot digitty dog! Now, ain't it queer,
I've been abroad for over a year;
Seen a helluva lot since then,
Killed, I reckon, a dozen men;
...

To hell with Government I say;
I'm sick of all the piddling pack.
I'd like to scram, get clean away,
And never, nevermore come back.
...

A father's pride I used to know,
A mother's love was mine;
For swinish husks I let them go,
And bedded with the swine.
...

Birds have no consciousness of doom:
Yon thrush that serenades me daily
From scented snow of hawthorn bloom
Would not trill out his glee so gaily,
...