Finistere
Hurrah! I'm off to Finistere, to Finistere, to Finistere;
My satchel's swinging on my back, my staff is in my hand;
I've twenty louis in my purse, I know the sun and sea are there,
And so I'm starting out to-day to tramp the golden land.
I'll go alone and glorying, with on my lips a song of joy;
I'll leave behind the city with its canker and its care;
I'll swing along so sturdily -- oh, won't I be the happy boy!
A-singing on the rocky roads, the roads of Finistere.
Oh, have you been to Finistere, and do you know a whin-gray town
That echoes to the clatter of a thousand wooden shoes?
And have you seen the fisher-girls go gallivantin' up and down,
And watched the tawny boats go out, and heard the roaring crews?
Oh, would you sit with pipe and bowl, and dream upon some sunny quay,
Or would you walk the windy heath and drink the cooler air;
Oh, would you seek a cradled cove and tussle with the topaz sea! --
Pack up your kit to-morrow, lad, and haste to Finistere.
Oh, I will go to Finistere, there's nothing that can hold me back.
I'll laugh with Yves and Le/on, and I'll chaff with Rose and Jeanne;
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poem by Robert William Service
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The Mystery Of Mister Smith
For supper we had curried tripe.
I washed the dishes, wound the clock;
Then for awhile I smoked my pipe -
Puff! Puff! We had no word of talk.
The Misses sewed - a sober pair;
Says I at last: "I need some air."
A don't know why I acted so;
I had no thought, no plot, no plan.
I did not really mean to go -
I'm such a docile little man;
But suddenly I felt that I
Must change my life or I would die.
A sign I saw: A ROOM TO LET.
It had a musty, dusty smell;
It gloated gloom, it growled and yet
Somehow I felt I liked it well.
I paid the rent a month ahead:
That night I smoked my pipe in bed.
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poem by Robert William Service
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My Typewriter
I used to think a pot of ink
Held magic in its fluid,
And I would ply a pen when I
Was hoary a a Druid;
But as I scratch my silver thatch
My battered old Corona
Calls out to me as plaintively
As dying Desdemona.
"For old time's sake give me a break:
To you I've been as loyal
As ever could an Underwood,
Or Remington or Royal.
The globe we've spanned together and
Two million words, maybe,
For you I've tapped - it's time you rapped
A rhyme or two for me.
"I've seen you sit and smoke and spit
With expletives profane,
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poem by Robert William Service
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Room 6: The Little Workgirl
Three gentlemen live close beside me --
A painter of pictures bizarre,
A poet whose virtues might guide me,
A singer who plays the guitar;
And there on my lintel is Cupid;
I leave my door open, and yet
These gentlemen, aren't they stupid!
They never make love to Babette.
I go to the shop every morning;
I work with my needle and thread;
Silk, satin and velvet adorning,
Then luncheon on coffee and bread.
Then sewing and sewing till seven;
Or else, if the order I get,
I toil and I toil till eleven --
And such is the day of Babette.
It doesn't seem cheerful, I fancy;
The wage is unthinkably small;
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poem by Robert William Service
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Externalism
The Greatest Writer of to-day
(With Maupassant I almost set him)
Said to me in a weary way,
The last occasion that I met him:
"Old chap, this world is more and more
Becoming bourgeois, blasé, blousy:
Thank God I've lived so long before
It got so definitely lousy."
Said I: "Old chap, I don't agree.
Why should one so dispraise the present?
For gainful guys like you and me,
It still can be extremely pleasant.
Have we not Women, Wine and Song -
A gleeful trio to my thinking;
So blithely we can get along
With laughing, loving, eating, drinking."
Said he: "Dear Boy, it may be so,
But I'm fed up with war and worry;
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poem by Robert William Service
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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, jest as easy as could be,
From Pumpkinville in Idaho to Rome in Italy;
An' found myself in seven days of mostly atmosphere
A-starin' at a statoo called Appoller Belvydeer.
Now I'm a rum-soaked sinner, an' religion ain't my plan,
Yet, I was flabbergasted by that gol-darned Vattyican;
An' when I seed Saint Peter's dome, all I could do was swear,
The which I reckon after all may be a form o' prayer;
Abut as I sought amid them sights bewildered to steer,
The king-pin was the one they called Appoller Belvydeer.
Say, I ain't got no culture an' I don't know any art,
But that there statoo got me, standin' in its room apart,
In an alcove draped wi' velvet, lookin' everlastin' bright,
Like the vision o' a poet, full o' beauty, grace an' light;
An' though I know them kind o' words sound sissy in the ear,
It's jest how I was struck by that Appoller Belvydeer.
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poem by Robert William Service
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Stamp Collector
My worldly wealth I hoard in albums three,
My life collection of rare postage stamps;
My room is cold and bare as you can see,
My coat is old and shabby as a tramp's;
Yet more to me than balances in banks,
My albums three are worth a million francs.
I keep them in that box beside my bed,
For who would dream such treasures it could hold;
But every day I take them out and spread
Each page, to gloat like miser o'er his gold:
Dearer to me than could be child or wife,
I would defend them with my very life.
They are my very life, for every night
over my catalogues I pore and pore;
I recognize rare items with delight,
Nothing I read but philatelic lore;
And when some specimen of choice I buy,
In all the world there's none more glad than I.
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poem by Robert William Service
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Death's Way
Old Man Death's a lousy heel who will not play the game:
Let Graveyard yawn and doom down crash, he'll sneer and turn away.
But when the sky with rapture rings and joy is like a flame,
Then Old Man Death grins evilly, and swings around to slay.
Jack Duval was my chosen pal in the ranks of the Reckless Men.
Thick as thieves they used to say, and it may be that we were:
Where the price of life is a naked knife and dammed are nine in ten,
It doesn't do to be curious in the Legion Etrangère.
So when it came to a hidden shame our mugs were zippered tight;
He never asked me what I'd done, and he would never tell;
But though like men we revelled, when it came to bloody fight
I knew that I could bank on him clear to the hubs of hell.
They still tell how we held the Fort back on the blasted bled,
And blazed from out the shambles till the fagged relief arrived.
"The garrison are slaughtered all," the Captain grimly said:
Piped Jack: "Give us a slug of hooch and say that TWO survived."
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poem by Robert William Service
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Five-Per-Cent
Because I have ten thousand pounds I sit upon my stern,
And leave my living tranquilly for other folks to earn.
For in some procreative way that isn't very clear,
Ten thousand pounds will breed, they say, five hundred every year.
So as I have a healthy hate of economic strife,
I mean to stand aloof from it the balance of my life.
And yet with sympathy I see the grimy son of toil,
And heartly congratulate the tiller of the soil.
I like the miner in the mine, the sailor on the sea,
Because up to five hundred pounds they sail and mine for me.
For me their toil is taxed unto that annual extent,
According to the holy shibboleth of Five-per-Cent.
So get ten thousand pounds, my friend, in any way you can.
And leave your future welfare to the noble Working Man.
He'll buy you suits of Harris tweed, an Airedale and a car;
Your golf clubs and your morning Times, your whisky and cigar.
He'll cosily install you in a cottage by a stream,
With every modern comfort, and a garden that's a dream>
Or if your tastes be urban, he'll provide you with a flat,
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poem by Robert William Service
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The Song Of The Soldier-Born
Give me the scorn of the stars and a peak defiant;
Wail of the pines and a wind with the shout of a giant;
Night and a trail unknown and a heart reliant.
Give me to live and love in the old, bold fashion;
A soldier's billet at night and a soldier's ration;
A heart that leaps to the fight with a soldier's passion.
For I hold as a simple faith there's no denying:
The trade of a soldier's the only trade worth plying;
The death of a soldier's the only death worth dying.
So let me go and leave your safety behind me;
Go to the spaces of hazard where nothing shall bind me;
Go till the word is War -- and then you will find me.
Then you will call me and claim me because you will need me;
Cheer me and gird me and into the battle-wrath speed me. . . .
And when it's over, spurn me and no longer heed me.
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poem by Robert William Service
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