Poems

Poems List

Explore poems from our collection

Robert W. Service
Robert W. Service

At The Golden Pig

At The Golden Pig

Where once with lads I scoffed my beer
The landlord's lass I've wed.
Now I am lord and master here;-Thank
God! the old man's dead…

243
Robert W. Service
Robert W. Service

At Eighty Years

At Eighty Years

As nothingness draws near
How I can see
Inexorably clear
My vanity.
My sum of worthiness
Always so small,
Dwindle…

232
Robert W. Service
Robert W. Service

Artist

Artist


He gave a picture exhibition,
Hiring a little empty shop.
Above its window: FREE ADMISSION
Cajoled the passers-by to stop;
Just …

234
Robert W. Service
Robert W. Service

Apollo Belvedere

Apollo Belvedere

A-sitttin' on a cracker box an' spittin' in the stove,
I took a sudden notion that I'd kindo' like to rove;
An' so I bought a ticket, je…

247
Robert W. Service
Robert W. Service

An Olive Fire

An Olive Fire

An olive fire's a lovely thing;
Somehow it makes me think of Spring
As in my grate it over-spills
With dancing flames like daffodils.…

288
Robert W. Service
Robert W. Service

Ant Hill

Ant Hill

Black ants have made a musty mound
My purple pine tree under,
And I am often to be found,
Regarding it with wonder.
Yet as I watch, …

251
Robert W. Service
Robert W. Service

Amateur Poet

Amateur Poet

You see that sheaf of slender books
Upon the topmost shelf,
At which no browser ever looks,
Because they're by . . . myself;
The…

280
Robert W. Service
Robert W. Service

An Epicure

An Epicure

Should you preserve white mice in honey
Don't use imported ones from China,
For though they cost you less in money
You'll find the Japan…

242
Robert W. Service
Robert W. Service

Agnostic Apology

Agnostic Apology

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. …

235
Robert W. Service
Robert W. Service

Allouette

Allouette


Singing larks I saw for sale (
Ah! the pain of it)
Plucked and ready to impale
On a roasting spit;
Happy larks that summer-lon…

242
Robert W. Service
Robert W. Service

Adoption

Adoption


Because I was a woman lone
And had of friends so few,
I made two little ones my own,
Whose parents no one knew;
Unwanted found…

250
Robert W. Service
Robert W. Service

Afternoon Tea

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.)

291
Robert W. Service
Robert W. Service

Abandoned Dog

Abandoned Dog

They dumped it on the lonely road,
Then like a streak they sped;
And as along the way I strode
I thought that it was dead:
And …

294
Robert W. Service
Robert W. Service

A Verseman's Apology

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
To love Eugene Field and B…

283
Robert W. Service
Robert W. Service

A Song Of Winter Weather

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
Of a shell, or the bust of a …

326
Robert W. Service
Robert W. Service

A Song Of Suicide

A Song Of Suicide

Deeming that I were better dead,
"How shall I kill myself?" I said.
Thus mooning by the river Seine
I sought extinction without p…

276
Robert W. Service
Robert W. Service

A Song Of Sixty-Five

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 agai…

248
Robert W. Service
Robert W. Service

A Snifter

A Snifter

After working hard all day
In the office,
How much worse on homeward way
My old cough is!
Barney's Bar is gaily lit,
Let me s…

292
Robert W. Service
Robert W. Service

A Rolling Stone

A Rolling Stone

There's sunshine in the heart of me,
My blood sings in the breeze;
The mountains are a part of me,
I'm fellow to the trees.
M…

260
Robert W. Service
Robert W. Service

A Plea

A Plea

Why need we newer arms invent,
Poor peoples to destroy?

With what we have let's be content
And perfect their employ.

With …

299
Robert W. Service
Robert W. Service

A Lyric Day

A Lyric Day

I deem that there are lyric days
So ripe with radiance and cheer,
So rich with gratitude and praise
That they enrapture all the year. <…

285
Robert W. Service
Robert W. Service

A Hero

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
No breath of being lingered th…

259
Robert W. Service
Robert W. Service

A Domestic Tragedy

A Domestic Tragedy

Clorinda met me on the way
As I came from the train;
Her face was anything but gay,
In fact, suggested pain.
"Oh hubby, hu…

278
Robert W. Service
Robert W. Service

A Casualty

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,
An…

342