Robert W Service

O God, take the sun from the sky!
It's burning me, scorching me up.
God, can't You hear my cry?  Water!
A poor, little cup!

This crowded life of God's good
No man has relished more than I;
I've been so goldarned busy livingI've never had the time to die.
So busy fishing, hunting, roving

To Dawson Town came Percy Brown from London on the Thames.
A pane of glass was in his eye, and stockings on his stems.
Upon the shoulder of his coat a leather pad he wore,
To rest his deadly rifle when it wasn't seeking gore;

There are strange things done in the midnight sun

By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales

Ma tried to wash her garden slacks but couldn't get 'em
And so she thought she'd soak 'em in a bucket o' benzine.
It worked all right.
She wrung 'em out then wondered what she'd

I watched one day a parrot grey - 'twas in a barber shop."Cuckold!" he cried, until I sighed: "You feathered devil, stop!"Then balefully he looked at me, and slid along his perch,
With sneering eye that seemed to pry me…

If dogs could speak,
O Mademoiselle,
What funny stories they could tell!
For instance, take your little "

I've been sittin' starin', starin' at 'is muddy pair of boots,
And tryin' to convince meself it's 'im.(Look out there, lad!
That sniper — 'e's a dysey when 'e shoots;
'E'll be layin' of you out the same as Jim.)Jim as lies there in…

My poem may be yours
In melody and tone,
If in its rhythm you can readA music of your own;
If in its pale woof you can

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…

I sought Him on the purple seas,
I sought Him on the peaks aflame;
Amid the gloom of giant
And canyons lone I called His name;

I wanted the gold, and I sought it,
I scrabbled and mucked like a slave.
Was it famine or scurvy — I fought it;
I hurled my youth into a grave.

Each New Year's Eve I used to
On my misdoings of the past,
And vowed: "This year I'll be so good -Well, haply better than the last."My record of reforms I
To Mum who listened sweetly to it:"Why plan all this, my…

A barefoot boy I went to school
To save a cobbler's fee,
For though the porridge pot was full
A frugal folk were we;

In the gay, gleamy morn I adore to go walking,
And oh what sweet people I meet on my way!
I hail them with joy for I love to be talking,
Although I have nothing important to say.

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

There's a cry from out the loneliness — oh, listen,
Honey, listen!
Do you hear it, do you fear it, you're a-holding of me so?
You're a-sobbing in your sleep, dear, and your lashes, how they glisten —

I am a mild man, you'll agree,
But red my rage is,
When folks who borrow books from me
Turn down their pages.

If you and I should chance to meet,
I guess you wouldn't care;
I'm sure you'd pass me in the
As if I wasn't there;

Flat as a drum-head stretch the haggard snows;
The mighty skies are palisades of light;
The stars are blurred; the silence grows and grows;
Vaster and vaster vaults the icy night.

It's mighty lonesome-like and drear.
Above the Wild the moon rides high,
And shows up sharp and
The emptiness of earth and sky;

The sunshine seeks my little
To tell me Paris streets are gay;
That children cry the lily
All up and down the leafy way;

Why am I full of joy although
It drizzles on the links?
Why am I buying Veuve Cliquot,
And setting up the drinks?

Jenny was my first sweetheart;
Poor lass! she was none too smart.
Though I swore she'd never rue it,
She would never let me do it.