Are there any Robert Service fans out there?

What’s your favorite R.S. poem and why? Mine are "Grin" and "The Men That Don’t Fit In" cause They relate to my life.

2 comments to Are there any Robert Service fans out there?

  • Ness

    Music in the Bush

    O’er the dark pines she sees the silver moon,

    And in the west, all tremulous, a star;

    And soothing sweet she hears the mellow tune

    Of cow-bells jangled in the fields afar.

    Quite listless, for her daily stent is done,

    She stands, sad exile, at her rose-wreathed door,

    And sends her love eternal with the sun

    That goes to gild the land she’ll see no more.

    The grave, gaunt pines imprison her sad gaze,

    All still the sky and darkling drearily;

    She feels the chilly breath of dear, dead days

    Come sifting through the alders eerily.

    Oh, how the roses riot in their bloom!

    The curtains stir as with an ancient pain;

    Her old piano gleams from out the gloom

    And waits and waits her tender touch in vain.

    But now her hands like moonlight brush the keys

    With velvet grace — melodious delight;

    And now a sad refrain from over seas

    Goes sobbing on the bosom of the night;

    And now she sings. (O! singer in the gloom,

    Voicing a sorrow we can ne’er express,

    Here in the Farness where we few have room

    Unshamed to show our love and tenderness,

    Our hearts will echo, till they beat no more,

    That song of sadness and of motherland;

    And, stretched in deathless love to England’s shore,

    Some day she’ll hearken and she’ll understand.)

    A prima-donna in the shining past,

    But now a mother growing old and gray,

    She thinks of how she held a people fast

    In thrall, and gleaned the triumphs of a day.

    She sees a sea of faces like a dream;

    She sees herself a queen of song once more;

    She sees lips part in rapture, eyes agleam;

    She sings as never once she sang before.

    She sings a wild, sweet song that throbs with pain,

    The added pain of life that transcends art –

    A song of home, a deep, celestial strain,

    The glorious swan-song of a dying heart.

    A lame tramp comes along the railway track,

    A grizzled dog whose day is nearly done;

    He passes, pauses, then comes slowly back

    And listens there — an audience of one.

    She sings — her golden voice is passion-fraught,

    As when she charmed a thousand eager ears;

    He listens trembling, and she knows it not,

    And down his hollow cheeks roll bitter tears.

    She ceases and is still, as if to pray;

    There is no sound, the stars are all alight –

    Only a wretch who stumbles on his way,

    Only a vagrant sobbing in the night.

    this is one of the best…

  • Ginger/Virginia

    I always enjoyed his colorful poetry. Here are some links to info on his life and his poems:
    http://www.artdamage.com/service.htm
    http://www.robertwservice.com/
    Here’s a place to read many of his poems:
    http://www.mochinet.com/poets/service/index.cgi
    I like the action in the "Shooting of Dan McGrew"
    You might enjoy some of the cowboy poets with their ballads and story poems..

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