Robert Service

If you leave the gloom of London and you seek a glowing land,
Where all except the flag is strange and new,
There’s a bronzed and stalwart fellow who will grip you by the hand,
And greet you with a welcome warm and true;
For he’s your younger brother, the one you sent away
Because there wasn’t room for him […]

When a man gits on his uppers in a hard-pan sort of town,
An’ he ain’t got nothin’ comin’ an’ he can’t afford ter eat,
An’ he’s in a fix for lodgin’ an’ he wanders up an’ down,
An’ you’d fancy he’d been boozin’, he’s so locoed ’bout the feet;
When he’s feelin’ sneakin’ sorry an’ his belt is […]

I’ve sent my klooch to town,
With a haggard face and a ribband of red entwined in her hair of brown.
And I know at the dawn she’ll come reeling home
with the bottles, one, two, three –
One for herself, to drown her shame, and two big bottles for me,
To make me forget the thing I am and […]

There’s a four-pronged buck a-swinging in the shadow of my cabin,
And it roamed the velvet valley till to-day;
But I tracked it by the river, and I trailed it in the cover,
And I killed it on the mountain miles away.
Now I’ve had my lazy supper, and the level sun is gleaming
On the water where the silver […]

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 […]

There’s a race of men that don’t fit in,
A race that can’t stay still;
So they break the hearts of kith and kin,
And they roam the world at will.
They range the field and they rove the flood,
And they climb the mountain’s crest;
Theirs is the curse of the gypsy blood,
And they don’t know how to rest.
If they […]

One said: Thy life is thine to make or mar,
To flicker feebly, or to soar, a star;
It lies with thee — the choice is thine, is thine,
To hit the ties or drive thy auto-car.
I answered Her: The choice is mine — ah, no!
We all were made or marred long, long ago.
The parts are […]

It’s fine to have a blow-out in a fancy restaurant,
With terrapin and canvas-back and all the wine you want;
To enjoy the flowers and music, watch the pretty women pass,
Smoke a choice cigar, and sip the wealthy water in your glass.
It’s bully in a high-toned joint to eat and drink your fill,
But it’s quite another matter […]

I know a garden where the lilies gleam,
And one who lingers in the sunshine there;
She is than white-stoled lily far more fair,
And oh, her eyes are heaven-lit with dream!
I know a garret, cold and dark and drear,
And one who toils and toils with tireless pen,
Until his brave, sad eyes grow weary — then
He seeks the […]

I haled me a woman from the street,
Shameless, but, oh, so fair!
I bade her sit in the model’s seat
And I painted her sitting there.
I hid all trace of her heart unclean;
I painted a babe at her breast;
I painted her as she might have been
If the Worst had been the Best.
She laughed at my picture and […]