Robert Service was a British-Canadian poet born in 1874. He is sometimes referred to as the “Bard of the Yukon.” He spent some of his life in the Yukon Wilderness working as a cowboy. This period informed his poetry for the rest of his life.
Robert Service’s ‘Death in the Arctic’ tells a bleak, dark story in such an evocative way that even after the poem finishes, the reader can’t help but wonder for more.
I took the clock down from the shelf;
"At eight," said I, "I shoot myself."
It lacked a minute of the hour,
And as I waited all a-cower,
‘The Woman and the Angel’ is an allegory by Robert Service that reflects on the evolving nature of ethics and morality in human society.
An angel was tired of heaven, as he lounged in the golden street;
His halo was tilted sideways, and his harp lay mute at his feet;
So the Master stooped in His pity, and gave him a pass to go,
For the space of a moon, to the earth-world, to mix with the men below.
Three times I had the lust to kill,
To clutch a throat so young and fair,
And squeeze with all my might until
No breath of being lingered there.
In ‘A Rolling Stone’, Robert Service reflects on the simple idea of getting away from the convoluted machinations of the modern world. The poem was published in Rhymes of a Rolling Stone in 1912.
Robert Service visits the fantasy of living alone on an island in ‘Atoll,’ and depicts it as an experience both unique and unsettling.
In writing ‘My Book,’ Robert Service reminds his readers about the importance of avoiding judgement on others and instead focusing on themselves.
Before I drink myself to death,
God, let me finish up my Book!
At night, I fear, I fight for breath,
And wake up whiter than a spook;
‘My Masterpiece’ seems to be the poem Robert Service wrote to warn the reader about the regrets they may discover too late in their lives.
‘Old David Smail’ tells the story of a dreamer, a character that is both relatable and strange, and one that most people could learn from.
In ‘The Call,’ Robert Service reflects on the propaganda used to recruit soldiers into World War I, based on his living in France at the time.
Robert Service wrote ‘The Call of the Wild’ from the middle of the wilderness, and in it fervently invites his reader to join in the experience.
‘The Cremation of Sam McGee’ is one of the best-known poems of Robert W. Service. The poem presents the cremation of Sam McGee who freezes to death in the prospect of gold.
Robert Service writes about one of the most powerful forms of grief in the world in ‘The Other One’: the grief of a parent for a lost child.
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.
‘The Stretcher-Bearer’ is one of Robert Service’s signature wartime poems that recalls his experiences during the First World War.
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