Robert William Service

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 fer 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 hangin' slack,
An' his face is peaked an' grey-like, an' his heart gits down an' whines,
Then he's apt ter git a-thinkin' an' a-wishin' he was back
In the little ol' log cabin in the shadder of the pines.

When he's on the blazin' desert, an' his canteen's sprung a leak,
An' he's all alone an' crazy, an' he's crawlin' like a snail,
An' his tongue's so black an' swollen that it hurts him fer to speak,
An' he gouges down fer water, an' the raven's on his trail;
When he's done with care a...

* The French "Tommy".



Oh, some of us lolled in the chateau,
And some of us slinked in the slum;
But now we are here with a song and a cheer
To serve at the sign of the drum.
They put us in trousers of scarlet,
In big sloppy ulsters of blue;
In boots that are flat, a box of a hat,
And they call us the little piou-piou,
        Piou-piou,
The laughing and quaffing piou-piou,
The swinging and singing piou-piou;
And so with a rattle we march to the battle,
The weary but cheery piou-piou.

    Encore un petit verre de vin,
    Pour nous mettre en route;
    Encore un petit verre de vin
    Pour nous mettre en train.

They drive us head-on for the slaughter;
We haven't got much of a chance;
The issue looks bad, ...

    In the moonless, misty night, with my little pipe alight,
    I am sitting by the camp-fire's fading cheer;
    Oh, the dew is falling chill on the dim, deer-haunted hill,
    And the breakers in the bay are moaning drear.
    The toilful hours are sped, the boys are long abed,
    And I alone a weary vigil keep;
    In the sightless, sullen sky I can hear the night-hawk cry,
    And the frogs in frenzied chorus from the creek.

    And somehow the embers' glow brings me back the long ago,
    The days of merry laughter and light song;
    When I sped the hours away with the gayest of the gay
    In the giddy whirl of fashion's festal throng.
    Oh, I ran a grilling race and I little recked the pace,
    For the lust of youth ran riot in my blood;
    But at l...

Ye who know the Lone Trail fain would follow it,
Though it lead to glory or the darkness of the pit.
Ye who take the Lone Trail, bid your love good-bye;
The Lone Trail, the Lone Trail follow till you die.

The trails of the world be countless, and most of the trails be tried;
You tread on the heels of the many, till you come where the ways divide;
And one lies safe in the sunlight, and the other is dreary and wan,
Yet you look aslant at the Lone Trail, and the Lone Trail lures you on.
And somehow you're sick of the highway, with its noise and its easy needs,
And you seek the risk of the by-way, and you reck not where it leads.
And sometimes it leads to the desert, and the tongue swells out of the mouth,
And you stagger blind to the mirage, to die in the mocking drouth.

    "And when I come to die," he said,
    "Ye shall not lay me out in state,
    Nor leave your laurels at my head,
    Nor cause your men of speech orate;
    No monument your gift shall be,
    No column in the Hall of Fame;
    But just this line ye grave for me:
    'He played the game.'"

    So when his glorious task was done,
    It was not of his fame we thought;
    It was not of his battles won,
    But of the pride with which he fought;
    But of his zest, his ringing laugh,
    His trenchant scorn of praise or blame:
    And so we graved his epitaph,
    "He played the game."

    And so we, too, in humbler ways
    Went forth to fight the fight anew,
    And heeding neither blame nor praise,
    We held the course he set...

This is the pay-day up at the mines, when the bearded brutes come down;
There's money to burn in the streets to-night, so 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 the man I used to be.

To make me forget the brand of the dog, as I crouch in this hideous place;
To make me forget once I kindled the light of love in a lady's face,
Where even the squalid Siwash now holds me a black disgrace.

Oh, I have guarded my secret well! And who would dream as I speak
In a tribal tongue like a rogue unhung, 'mid the ranch-house filth and reek,
...

    Jack would laugh an' joke all day;
    Never saw a lad so gay;
    Singin' like a medder lark,
    Loaded to the Plimsoll mark
    With God's sunshine was that boy;
    Had a strangle-holt on Joy.
    Held his head 'way up in air,
    Left no callin' cards on Care;
    Breezy, buoyant, brave and true;
    Sent his sunshine out to you;
    Cheerfulest when clouds was black -
    Happy Jack! Oh, Happy Jack!

    Sittin' in my shack alone
    I could hear him in his own,
    Singin' far into the night,
    Till it didn't seem just right
    One man should corral the fun,
    Live his life so in the sun;
    Didn't seem quite natural
    Not to have a grouch at all;
    Not a trouble, not a lack -
    Happy Jack! Oh, Happy Jack!

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 -
Do you hear the Little Voices all a-begging me to go?

All a-begging me to leave you. Day and night they're pleading, praying,
On the North-wind, on the West-wind, from the peak and from the plain;
Night and day they never leave me - do you know what they are saying?
"He was ours before you got him, and we want him once again."

Yes, they're wanting me, they're haunting me, the awful lonely places;
They're whining and they're whimpering as if each had a soul;
They're calling from the wilderness, the vast and god-like spaces,
The stark and sullen solitudes that sentinel the Pole....

Oh the wife she tried to tell me that 'twas nothing but the thrumming
Of a wood-pecker a-rapping on the hollow of a tree;
And she thought that I was fooling when I said it was the drumming
Of the mustering of legions, and 'twas calling unto me;
'Twas calling me to pull my freight and hop across the sea.

And a-mending of my fish-nets sure I started up in wonder,
For I heard a savage roaring and 'twas coming from afar;
Oh the wife she tried to tell me that 'twas only summer thunder,
And she laughed a bit sarcastic when I told her it was War;
'Twas the chariots of battle where the mighty armies are.

Then down the lake came Half-breed Tom with russet sail a-flying,
And the word he said was "War" again, so what was I to do?
Oh the dogs they took to howling, and the missis ...

He's the man from Eldorado, and he's just arrived in town,
In moccasins and oily buckskin shirt.
He's gaunt as any Indian, and pretty nigh as brown;
He's greasy, and he smells of sweat and dirt.
He sports a crop of whiskers that would shame a healthy hog;
Hard work has racked his joints and stooped his back;
He slops along the sidewalk followed by his yellow dog,
But he's got a bunch of gold-dust in his sack.

He seems a little wistful as he blinks at all the lights,
And maybe he is thinking of his claim
And the dark and dwarfish cabin where he lay and dreamed at nights,
(Thank God, he'll never see the place again!)
Where he lived on tinned tomatoes, beef embalmed and sourdough bread,
On rusty beans and bacon furred with mould;
His stomach's out of kilter and his s...

    The Dreamer visioned Life as it might be,
    And from his dream forthright a picture grew,
    A painting all the people thronged to see,
    And joyed therein - till came the Man Who Knew,
    Saying: "'Tis bad! Why do ye gape, ye fools!
    He painteth not according to the schools."

    The Dreamer probed Life's mystery of woe,
    And in a book he sought to give the clue;
    The people read, and saw that it was so,
    And read again - then came the Man Who Knew,
    Saying: "Ye witless ones! this book is vile:
    It hath not got the rudiments of style."

    Love smote the Dreamer's lips, and silver clear
    He sang a song so sweet, so tender true,
    That all the market-place was thrilled to hear,
    And listened rapt - till came the Man W...

The cruel war was over - oh, the triumph was so sweet!
We watched the troops returning, through our tears;
There was triumph, triumph, triumph down the scarlet glittering street,
And you scarce could hear the music for the cheers.
And you scarce could see the house-tops for the flags that flew between,
The bells were pealing madly to the sky;
And every one was shouting for the Soldiers of the Queen,
And the glory of an age was passing by.

And then there came a shadow, swift and sudden, dark and drear;
The bells were silent, not an echo stirred.
The flags were drooping sullenly, the men forgot to cheer;
We waited, and we never spoke a word.
The sky grew darker, darker, till from out the gloomy rack
There came a voice that checked the heart with dread:
"Tear down, t...

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 gipsy blood,
And they don't know how to rest.

If they just went straight they might go far;
They are strong and brave and true;
But they're always tired of the things that are,
And they want the strange and new.
They say: "Could I find my proper groove,
What a deep mark I would make!"
So they chop and change, and each fresh move
Is only a fresh mistake.

And each forgets, as he strips and runs,
With a brilliant, fitful pace,
It's the steady, quiet, plodding ones
Who win in the lifelo...

    There will be a singing in your heart,
    There will be a rapture in your eyes;
    You will be a woman set apart,
    You will be so wonderful and wise.
    You will sleep, and when from dreams you start,
    As of one that wakes in Paradise,
    There will be a singing in your heart,
    There will be a rapture in your eyes.

    There will be a moaning in your heart,
    There will be an anguish in your eyes;
    You will see your dearest ones depart,
    You will hear their quivering good-byes.
    Yours will be the heart-ache and the smart,
    Tears that scald and lonely sacrifice;
    There will be a moaning in your heart,
    There will be an anguish in your eyes.

    There will come a glory in your eyes,
    There will come a peac...

    I know a mountain thrilling to the stars,
    Peerless and pure, and pinnacled with snow;
    Glimpsing the golden dawn o'er coral bars,
    Flaunting the vanisht sunset's garnet glow;
    Proudly patrician, passionless, serene;
    Soaring in silvered steeps where cloud-surfs break;
    Virgin and vestal - Oh, a very Queen!
    And at her feet there dreams a quiet lake.

    My lake adores my mountain - well I know,
    For I have watched it from its dawn-dream start,
    Stilling its mirror to her splendid snow,
    Framing her image in its trembling heart;
    Glassing her graciousness of greening wood,
    Kissing her throne, melodiously mad,
    Thrilling responsive to her every mood,
    Gloomed with her sadness, gay when she is glad.

    ...

I look into the aching womb of night;
I look across the mist that masks the dead;
The moon is tired and gives but little light,
The stars have gone to bed.

The earth is sick and seems to breathe with pain;
A lost wind whimpers in a mangled tree;
I do not see the foul, corpse-cluttered plain,
The dead I do not see.

The slain I WOULD not see . . . and so I lift
My eyes from out the shambles where they lie;
When lo! a million woman-faces drift
Like pale leaves through the sky.

The cheeks of some are channelled deep with tears;
But some are tearless, with wild eyes that stare
Into the shadow of the coming years
Of fathomless despair.

And some are young, and some are very old;
And some are rich, some poor beyond belief;
Yet ...

    On the ragged edge of the world I'll roam,
    And the home of the wolf shall be my home,
    And a bunch of bones on the boundless snows
    The end of my trail . . . who knows, who knows!

    I'm dreaming to-night in the fire-glow, alone in my study tower,
    My books battalioned around me, my Kipling flat on my knee;
    But I'm not in the mood for reading, I haven't moved for an hour;
    Body and brain I'm weary, weary the heart of me;
    Weary of crushing a longing it's little I understand,
    For I thought that my trail was ended, I thought I had earned my rest;
    But oh, it's stronger than life is, the call of the hearthless land!
    And I turn to the North in my trouble, as a child to the mother-breast.

    Here in my den it's quiet; the sea-...

Me and Ed and a stretcher
Out on the nootral ground.
(If there's one dead corpse, I'll betcher
There's a 'undred smellin' around.)
Me and Eddie O'Brian,
Both of the R. A. M. C.
"It's a 'ell of a night
For a soul to take flight,"
As Eddie remarks to me.
Me and Ed crawlin' 'omeward,
Thinkin' our job is done,
When sudden and clear,
Wot do we 'ear:
'Owl of a wounded 'Un.

"Got to take 'im," snaps Eddy;
"Got to take all we can.
'E may be a Germ
Wiv the 'eart of a worm,
But, blarst 'im! ain't 'e a man?"
So 'e sloshes out fixin' a dressin'
('E'd always a medical knack),
When that wounded 'Un
'E rolls to 'is gun,
And 'e plugs me pal in the back.

Now what would you do? I arst you.
There was me slaughtered mate.