I need a poem using hyperbole PLEASE?

Question

"10 POINTS FOR THE BEST" 12 SENTANCES

Answer 1

HYPERBOLE
-A hyperbole is a type of figurative language. It is often confused with a simile or a metaphor because it often compares two objects. The difference is a hyperbole is an exaggeration. For example:
His feet were as big as a barge. It looks like a simile. It is comparing foot size to the size of a barge. Everyone knows that a barge is approximately 700 feet long. Imagine getting a pair of shoes that big!

Hyperbolic 12 sentences
A head or tail - which does he lack?
I think his forward's coming back!
His feet are as big as a barge
I nearly died laughing,
I tried a thousand times
I could sleep for a year
Hiis box weighed a ton
I've told you a million times not to exaggerate
I'd rather take baths with a man-eating shark
I've told you a million times you exaggerate!
I will skin you alive
Your mother is so small she does chin-ups on the curb.
**
Published poem:
Homework! Oh, Homework!
I hate you! You stink!
I wish I could wash you away in the sink,
if only a bomb
would explode you to bits.
Homework! Oh, homework!
You're giving me fits.


I'd rather take baths
with a man-eating shark,
or wrestle a lion
alone in the dark,
eat spinach and liver,
pet ten porcupines,
than tackle the homework,
my teacher assigns.


Homework! Oh, homework!
you're last on my list,
I simple can't see
why you even exist,
if you just disappeared
it would tickle me pink.
Homework! Oh, homework!
I hate you! You stink!

Jack Prelutsky
**
*Homework assignment???
Best answer has also just been selected here:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070222160754AA9Q5Wx


Good luck

Answer 2

1

Answer 3

He's as strong as an ox
with a stereo that rocks!
He's built like a box
and as sly as a fox!
She's as neat as a pin
a crystal lake to dive in.
She'll knife you for a fin
then kiss you back to life again!
Together they're a pair of aces
with vogue fashion faces.
They cover all their bases
as fine as chantilly laces!
The people are all floored
because they won't be ignored.
They cut societies' cord
then over the moon they soared!
Some copied their mojo
but danced like pogos.
Busted flat they cried "Oh no!"
through teeth like picket logos.
Because there's nothing like the two
try to copy they'll eat you!
You'll only wind up misty blue...
Then they'll laugh and shout "Dejavu!"

Answer 4

Hair loss affects both men and women. Here are some natural remedies that can help boost hair growth: https://tr.im/jmvv5
While genetics plays a role, there are other factors, including: hormonal imbalances, an underactive thyroid gland, nutrient deficiencies and insufficient scalp circulation.

Answer 5

poem hyperbole

Answer 6

See the shooting of Dan McGrew below
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There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee.
Robert Service, an inveterate traveler and adventure seeker, was born in England in 1874, and grew up in Scotland.

Service yearned to be a cowboy. He arrived in Canada the same year that gold was found in the Klondike, and did hire on as a cowboy for a bit on Vancouver Island. But soon he returned to the job he had trained for -- banking -- and that work led him eventually to the Yukon, when his bank transferred him there.

There he wrote stories of the prospectors and poems such as "The Shooting of Dan McGrew" and "The Cremation of Sam McGee." His work met with immediate acclaim and his poetry remains widely read and performed.

Some of the tales he tells are colored by his life in the West among cowboys, and the strong rhyme and meter of his work have inspired many Cowboy Poets.





Poems

Books

Links and More





Robert Service's poems are widely available in books and on the internet. See the links and books sections on this page for more information. Our first four selections on this page come from two Hancock House volumes, The Cremation of Sam McGee and The Shooting of Dan McGrew, reprinted with their kind permission.





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Poems

The Ballad of Blasphemous Bill
I took a contract to bury the body...

The Ballad of Hard Luck Henry
Now wouldn't you expect to find...

The Cremation of Sam McGee
There are strange things done in the midnight sun...

The Shooting of Dan McGrew
A bunch of the boys were whooping it up...



Anonymous
When at the sign: Anthology I climbed aboard the lyric bus...

The Ballad of One-Eyed Mike
This is the tale that was told to me by the man with the crystal eye...

The Cow-Juice Cure
The clover was in blossom, an' the year was at the June...

The Land of Beyond
Have ever you heard of the Land of Beyond...

The Men That Don't Fit In
There's a race of men that don't fit in...

My Masterpiece
It's slim and trim and bound in blue...

The Parson's Son
This is the song of the parson's son...

The Quitter
When you're lost in the Wild, and you're scared as a child...

The Three Voices
The waves have a story to tell me...

The Trapper's Christmas Eve
It's mighty lonesome-like and drear...









--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



The Cremation of Sam McGee


There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee.

Now Sam McGee was from Tennessee,
where the cotton blooms and blows.
Why he left his home in the South to roam
'round the Pole, God only knows.
He was always cold, but the land of gold
seemed to hold him like a spell;
Though he'd often say in his homely way
that he'd "sooner live in Hell."

On a Christmas Day we were mushing our way
over the Dawson trail.
Talk of your cold! through the parka's fold
it stabbed like a driven nail.
If our eyes we'd close, then the lashes froze
till sometimes we couldn't see,
It wasn't much fun, but the only one
to whimper was Sam McGee.

And that very night, as we lay packed tight
in our robes beneath the snow,
And the dogs were fed, and the stars o'erhead
were dancing heel and toe,
He turned to me, and "Cap," says he,
"I'll cash in this trip, I guess;
And if I do, I'm asking that you
won't refuse my last request."

Well, he seemed so low that I couldn't say no;
then he says with a sort of moan,
"It's the cursed cold, and it's got right hold
till I'm chilled clean through to the bone.
Yet 'tain't being dead -- it's my awful dread
of the icy grave that pains;
So I want you to swear that, foul or fair,
you'll cremate my last remains."

A pal's last need is a thing to heed,
so I swore I would not fail;
And we started on at the streak of dawn;
but God! he looked ghastly pale.
He crouched on the sleigh, and he raved all day
of his home in Tennessee;
And before nightfall a corpse was all
that was left of Sam McGee.

There wasn't a breath in that land of death,
and I hurried, horror-driven,
With a corpse half hid that I couldn't get rid,
because of a promise given;
It was lashed to the sleigh, and it seemed to say:
"You may tax your brawn and brains,
But you promised true, and it's up to you
to cremate these last remains."

Now a promise made is a debt unpaid,
and the trail has its own stern code.
In the days to come, though my lips were dumb,
in my heart how I cursed that load!
In the long, long night, by the lone firelight,
while the huskies, round in a ring,
Howled out their woes to the homeless snows --
O God, how I loathed the thing!

And every day that quiet clay
seemed to heavy and heavier grow;
And on I went, though the dogs were spent
and the grub was getting low.
The trail was bad, and I felt half mad,
but I swore I would not give in;
And I'd often sing to the hateful thing,
and it hearkened with a grin.

Till I came to the marge of Lake Lebarge,
and a derelict there lay;
It was jammed in the ice, but I saw in a trice
it was called the Alice May.
And I looked at it, and I thought a bit,
and I looked at my frozen chum;
Then "Here," said I, with a sudden cry,
"is my cre-ma-tor-eum!"

Some planks I tore from the cabin floor,
and I lit the boiler fire;
Some coal I found that was lying around,
and I heaped the fuel higher;
The flames just soared, and the furnace roared --
such a blaze you seldom see;
And I burrowed a hole in the glowing coal,
and I stuffed in Sam McGee.

Then I made a hike, for I didn't like
to hear him sizzle so;
And the heavens scowled, and the huskies howled,
and the wind began to blow.
It was icy cold, but the hot sweat rolled
down my cheeks, and I don't know why;
And the greasy smoke in an inky cloak
went streaking down the sky.

I do not know how long in the snow
I wrestled with grisly fear;
But the stars came out and they danced about
ere again I ventured near;
I was sick with dread, but I bravely said,
"I'll just take a peep inside.
I guess he's cooked, and it's time I looked,"
then the door I opened wide.

And there sat Sam, looking cool and calm,
in the heart of the furnace roar;
And he wore a smile you could see a mile,
and he said: "Please close that door.
It's fine in here, but I greatly fear
you'll let in the cold and storm --
Since I left Plumtree, down in Tennessee,
it's the first time I've been warm."

There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee


Reprinted with permission from The Cremation of Sam McGee, Hancock House, 1989







The Shooting of Dan McGrew


A bunch of the boys were whooping it up
in the Malamute saloon;
The kid that handles the music-box
was hitting a jag-time tune;
Back of the bar, in a solo game,
sat Dangerous Dan McGrew,
And watching his luck was his light-o'-love,
the lady that's known as Lou.

When out of the night, which was fifty below,
and into the din and the glare,
There stumbled a miner fresh from the creeks,
dog-dirty, and loaded for bear.
He looked like a man with a foot in the grave
and scarcely the strength of a louse,
Yet he tilted a poke of dust on the bar,
and he called for drinks for the house.
There was none could place the stranger's face,
though we searched ourselves for a clue;
But we drank his health, and the last to drink
was Dangerous Dan McGrew.

There's men that somehow just grip your eyes,
and hold them hard like a spell;
And such was he, and he looked to me
like a man who had lived in hell;
With a face most hair, and the dreary stare
of a dog whose day is done,
As he watered the green stuff in his glass,
and the drops fell one by one.
Then I got to figgering who he was,
and wondering what he'd do,
And I turned my head -- and there watching him
was the lady that's known as Lou.

His eyes went rubbering round the room,
and he seemed in a kind of daze,
Till at last that old piano fell
in the way of his wandering gaze.
The ragtime kid was having a drink;
there was no one else on the stool,
So the stranger stumbles across the room,
and flops down there like a fool.
In a buckskin shirt that was glazed with dirt
he sat, and I saw him sway;
Then he clutched the keys with his talon hands
-- my God! but that man could play!

Were you ever out in the Great Alone,
when the moon was awful clear,
And the icy mountains hemmed you in
with a silence you most could hear;
With only the howl of a timber wolf,
and you camped there in the cold,
A half-dead thing in a stark, dead world,
clean mad for the muck called gold;
While high overhead, green, yellow and red,
the North Lights swept in bars? --
Then you've a hunch what the music meant...
hunger and night and the stars.

And hunger not of the belly kind,
that's banished with bacon and beans,
But the gnawing hunger of lonely men
for a home and all that it means;
For a fireside far from the cares that are,
four walls and a roof above;
But oh! so cramful of cozy joy,
and crowned with a woman's love --
A woman dearer than all the world,
and true as Heaven is true...
(God! how ghastly she looks through her rouge, --
the lady that's known as Lou).

Then on a sudden the music changed,
so soft that you scarce could hear;
But you felt that your life had been looted clean
of all that it once held dear;
That someone had stolen the woman you loved;
that her love was a devil's lie;
That your guts were gone, and the best for you
was to crawl away and die.
'Twas the crowning cry of a heart's despair,
and it thrilled you through and through --
"I guess I'll make it a spread misere,"
said Dangerous Dan McGrew.

The music almost died away...
then it burst like a pent-up flood;
And it seemed to say, "Repay, repay,"
and my eyes were blind with blood.
The thought came back of an ancient wrong,
and it stung like a frozen lash,
And the lust awoke to kill, to kill...
then the music stopped with a crash,
And the stranger turned, and his eyes they burned
in a most peculiar way;
In a buckskin shirt that was glazed with dirt
he sat, and I saw him sway;
Then his lips went in in a kind of grin,
and he spoke, and his voice was calm,
And "Boys," says he, "you don't know me,
and none of you care a damn;
But I want to state, and my words are straight,
and I'll bet my poke they're true,
That one of you is a hound of hell...
and that one is Dan McGrew."

Then I ducked my head, and the lights went out,
and two guns blazed in the dark,
And a woman screamed, and the lights went up,
and two men lay stiff and stark.
Pitched on his head, and pumped full of lead,
was Dangerous Dan McGrew,
While the man from the creeks lay clutched to the breast
of the lady that's known as Lou.

These are the simple facts of the case,
and I guess I ought to know.
They say the stranger was crazed with "hooch,"
and I'm not denying it's so.
I'm not so wise as the lawyer guys,
but strictly between us two --
The woman that kissed him -- and pinched his poke --
was the lady that's known as Lou.

Reprinted with permission from The Shooting of Dan McGrew, Hancock House, 1989







The Ballad of Blasphemous Bill


I took a contract to bury the body
of blasphemous Bill MacKie,
Whenever, wherever or whatsoever
the manner of death he die--
Whether he die in the light o' day
or under the peak-faced moon;
In cabin or dance-hall, camp or dive,
mucklucks or patent shoon;
On velvet tundra or virgin peak,
by glacier, drift or draw;
In muskeg hollow or canyon gloom,
by avalanche, fang or claw;
By battle, murder or sudden wealth,
by pestilence, "hooch" or lead--
I swore on the Book I would follow and look
till I found my tombless dead.

For Bill was a dainty kind of cuss,
and his mind was mighty sot
On a dinky patch with flowers and grass
in a civilized boneyard lot.
And where he died or how he died,
it didn't matter a damn
So long as he had a grave with frills
and a tombstone epigram.
So I promised him, and he paid the price
in good cheechako coin
(Which the same I blowed in that very night
down in the Tenderloin).
Then I painted a three-foot slab of pine:
"Here lies poor Bill MacKie,"
And I hung it up on my cabin wall
and I waited for Bill to die.

Years passed away, and at last one day
came a squaw with a story strange,
Of a long-deserted line of traps
'way back of the Bighorn range;
Of a little hut by the great divide,
and a white man stiff and still,
Lying there by his lonesome self,
and I figured it must be Bill.
So I thought of the contract I'd made with him,
and I took down from the shelf
The swell black box with the silver plate
he'd picked out for hisself;
And I packed it full of grub and "hooch",
and I slung it on the sleigh;
Then I harnessed up my team of dogs
and was off at dawn of day.

You know what it's like in the Yukon wild
when it's sixty-nine below;
When the ice-worms wriggle their purple heads
through the crust of the pale blue snow;
When the pine trees crack like little guns
in the silence of the wood,
And the icicles hang down like tusks
under the parka hood;
When the stovepipe smoke breaks sudden off,
and the sky is weirdly lit,
And the careless feel of a bit of steel
burns like a red-hot spit;
When the mercury is a frozen ball,
and the frost-fiend stalks to kill--
Well, it was just like that that day
when I set out to look for Bill.

Oh, the awful hush that seemed to crush
me down on every hand,
As I blundered blind with a trail to find
through that blank and bitter land;
Half dazed, half crazed in the winter wild,
with its grim heart-breaking woes,
And the ruthless strife for a grip on life
that only the sourdough knows!
North by the compass, North I pressed;
river and peak and plain
Passed like a dream I slept to lose
and I waked to dream again.

River and plain and mighty peak--
and who could stand unawed?
As their summits blazed, he could stand undazed
at the foot of the throne of God.
North, aye, North, through a land accurst,
shunned by the scouring brutes,
And all I heard was my own harsh word
and the whine of the malamutes,
Till at last I came to a cabin squat,
built in the side of a hill,
And I burst in the door, and there on the floor,
frozen to death, lay Bill.

Ice, white ice, like a winding-sheet,
sheathing each smoke-grimed wall;
Ice on the stove-pipe, ice on the bed,
ice gleaming over all;
Sparkling ice on the dead man's chest,
glittering ice in his hair,
Ice on his fingers, ice in his heart,
ice in his glassy stare;
Hard as a log and trussed like a frog,
with his arms and legs outspread.
I gazed at the coffin I'd brought for him,
and I gazed at the gruesome dead,
And at last I spoke; "Bill liked his joke;
but still, goldarn his eyes,
A man had ought to consider his mates
in the way he goes and dies."

Have you ever stood in an Arctic hut
in the shadow of the pole,
With a little coffin six by three
and a grief you can't control?
Have you ever sat by a frozen corpse
that looks at you with a grin,
And that seems to say: "You may try all day,
but you'll never jam me in?"
I'm not a man of the quitting kind,
but I never felt so blue
As I sat there gazing at that stiff
and studying what I'd do.
Then I rose and I kicked off the husky dogs
that were nosing round about,
And I lit a roaring fire in the stove,
and I started to thaw Bill out.

Well, I thawed and thawed for thirteen days,
but it didn't seem no good;
His arms and legs stuck out like pegs,
as if they was made of wood.
Till at last I said: "It ain't no use--
he's froze too hard to thaw;
He's obstinate, and he won't lie straight,
so I guess I got to--saw."
So I sawed off poor Bill's arms and legs,
and I laid him snug and straight
In the little coffin he picked hisself,
with the dinky silver plate;
And I came nigh near to shedding a tear
as I nailed him safely down;
Then I stowed him away in my Yukon sleigh,
and I started back to town.

So I buried him as the contract called
in a narrow grave and deep,
And there he's waiting the Great Clean-up,
when the Judgment sluice-heads sweep;
And I smoke my pipe and I meditate
in the light of the Midnight Sun,
And sometimes I wonder if they was,
the awful things I done.
And as I sit and the parson talks,
expounding of the Law,
I often think of poor old Bill--
and how hard he was to saw.


Reprinted with permission from The Cremation of Sam McGee, Hancock House, 1989





The Ballad of Hard Luck Henry


Now wouldn't you expect to find
a man an awful crank
That's staked out nigh three hundred claims,
and every one a blank;
That's followed every fool stampede,
and seen the rise and fall
Of camps where men got gold in chunks
and he got none at all;
That's prospected a bit of ground
and sold it for a song
To see it yield a fortune to
some fool that came along;
That's sunk a dozen bedrock holes,
and not a speck in sight,
Yet sees them take a million
from the claims to left and right?
Now aren't things like that enough
to drive a man to booze?
But Hard-Luck Smith was hoodoo-proof--
he knew the way to lose.

'Twas in the fall of nineteen four--
leap-year I've heard them say--
When Hard-Luck came to Hunker Creek
and took a hillside lay.
And lo! as if to make amends
for all the futile past,
Late in the year he struck it rich,
the real pay-streak at last.
The riffles of his sluicing-box
were choked with speckled earth,
And night and day he worked that lay
for all that he was worth.
And when in chill December's gloom
his lucky lease expired,
He found that he had made a stake
as big as he desired.

One day while meditating on
the waywardness of fate,
He felt the ache of lonely man
to find a fitting mate;
A petticoated pard to cheer
his solitary life,
A woman with soft, soothing ways,
a confidant, a wife.
And while he cooked his supper
on his little Yukon stove,
He wished that he had staked a claim
in Love's rich treasure-trove;
When suddenly he paused and held
aloft a Yukon egg,
For there in pencilled letters
was the magic name of Peg.

You know these Yukon eggs of ours--
some pink, some green, some blue--
A dollar per, assorted tints, assorted flavors too!
The supercilious cheechako
might designate them high,
But one acquires a taste for them
and likes them by-and-by.
Well, Hard-Luck Henry took this egg
and held it to the light,
And there was more faint pencilling
that sorely taxed his sight.
At last he made it out, and then
the legend ran like this--
"Will Klondike miner write to Peg,
Plumhollow, Squashville, Wis.?"

That night he got to thinking of
this far-off, unknown fair;
It seemed so sort of opportune,
an answer to his prayer.
She flitted sweetly through his dreams,
she haunted him by day,
She smiled through clouds of nicotine,
she cheered his weary way.
At last he yielded to the spell;
his course of love he set--
Wisconsin his objective point;
his object, Margaret.

With every mile of sea and land
his longing grew and grew.
He practiced all his pretty words,
and these, I fear, were few.
At last, one frosty evening,
with a cold chill down his spine,
He found himself before her house,
the threshold of the shrine.
His courage flickered to a spark,
then glowed with sudden flame.
He knocked; he heard a welcome word;
she came--his goddess came!
Oh, she was fair as any flower,
and huskily he spoke:
"I'm all the way from Klondike, with
a mighty heavy poke.
I'm looking for a lassie, one whose
Christian name is Peg,
Who sought a Klondike miner,
and who wrote it on an egg."

The lassie gazed at him a space,
her cheeks grew rosy red;
She gazed at him with tear-bright eyes,
then tenderly she said:
"Yes, lonely Klondike miner,
it is true my name is Peg.
It's also true I longed for you
and wrote it on an egg.
My heart went out to someone in
that land of night and cold;
But oh, I fear that Yukon egg
must have been mighty old.
I waited long, I hoped and feared;
you should have come before;
I've been a wedded woman now
for eighteen months or more.
I'm sorry, since you've come so far,
you ain't the one that wins;
But won't you take a step inside?--
I'll let you see the twins!"

Reprinted with permission from The Cremation of Sam McGee, Hancock House, 1989







The Parson's Son

This is the song of the parson's son, as he squats in his shack alone,
On the wild, weird nights, when the Northern Lights shoot up from the frozen zone,
And it's sixty below, and couched in the snow the hungry huskies moan:

"I'm one of the Arctic brotherhood, I'm an old-time pioneer.
I came with the first -- O God! how I've cursed this Yukon -- but still I'm here.
I've sweated athirst in its summer heat, I've frozen and starved in its cold;
I've followed my dreams by its thousand streams, I've toiled and moiled for its gold.

"Look at my eyes -- been snow-blind twice; look where my foot's half gone;
And that gruesome scar on my left cheek, where the frost-fiend bit to the bone.
Each one a brand of this devil's land, where I've played and I've lost the game,
A broken wreck with a craze for hooch, and never a cent to my name.

"This mining is only a gamble; the worst is as good as the best;
I was in with the bunch and I might have come out right on top with the rest;
With Cormack, Ladue and Macdonald -- O God! but it's hell to think
Of the thousands and thousands I've squandered on cards and women and drink.

"In the early days we were just a few, and we hunted and fished around,
Nor dreamt by our lonely camp-fires of the wealth that lay under the ground.
We traded in skins and whiskey, and I've often slept under the shade
Of that lone birch tree on Bonanza, where the first big find was made.

"We were just like a great big family, and every man had his squaw,
And we lived such a wild, free, fearless life beyond the pale of the law;
Till sudden there came a whisper, and it maddened us every man,
And I got in on Bonanza before the big rush began.

"Oh, those Dawson days, and the sin and the blaze, and the town all open wide!
(If God made me in His likeness, sure He let the devil inside.)
But we all were mad, both the good and the bad, and as for the women, well --
No spot on the map in so short a space has hustled more souls to hell.

"Money was just like dirt there, easy to get and to spend.
I was all caked in on a dance-hall jade, but she shook me in the end.
It put me queer, and for near a year I never drew sober breath,
Till I found myself in the bughouse ward with a claim staked out on death.

"Twenty years in the Yukon, struggling along its creeks;
Roaming its giant valleys, scaling its god-like peaks;
Bathed in its fiery sunsets, fighting its fiendish cold --
Twenty years in the Yukon . . . twenty years -- and I'm old.

"Old and weak, but no matter, there's `hooch' in the bottle still.
I'll hitch up the dogs to-morrow, and mush down the trail to Bill.
It's so long dark, and I'm lonesome -- I'll just lay down on the bed;
To-morrow I'll go . . . to-morrow . . . I guess I'll play on the red.

"...Come, Kit, your pony is saddled. I'm waiting, dear, in the court...
...Minnie, you devil, I'll kill you if you skip with that flossy sport...
...How much does it go to the pan, Bill?... play up, School, and play the game...
...Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name..."

This was the song of the parson's son, as he lay in his bunk alone,
Ere the fire went out and the cold crept in, and his blue lips ceased to moan,
And the hunger-maddened malamutes had torn him flesh from bone.

from The Spell of the Yukon







The Quitter

When you're lost in the Wild, and you're scared as a child,
And Death looks you bang in the eye,
And you're sore as a boil, it's according to Hoyle
To cock your revolver and... die.
But the Code of a Man says: "Fight all you can,"
And self-dissolution is barred.
In hunger and woe, oh, it's easy to blow...
It's the hell-served-for-breakfast that's hard.

"You're sick of the game!" Well, now, that's a shame.
You're young and you're brave and you're bright.
"You've had a raw deal!" I know -- but don't squeal,
Buck up, do your damnedest, and fight.
It's the plugging away that will win you the day,
So don't be a piker, old pard!
Just draw on your grit; it's so easy to quit:
It's the keeping-your-chin-up that's hard.

It's easy to cry that you're beaten -- and die;
It's easy to crawfish and crawl;
But to fight and to fight when hope's out of sight --
Why, that's the best game of them all!
And though you come out of each gruelling bout,
All broken and beaten and scarred,
Just have one more try -- it's dead easy to die,
It's the keeping-on-living that's hard.








The Trapper's Christmas Eve

It's mighty lonesome-like and drear.
Above the Wild the moon rides high,
And shows up sharp and needle-clear
The emptiness of earth and sky;
No happy homes with love a-glow;
No Santa Claus to make believe:
Just snow and snow, and then more snow;
It's Christmas Eve, it's Christmas Eve.

And here am I where all things end,
And Undesirables are hurled;
A poor old man without a friend,
Forgot and dead to all the world;
Clean out of sight and out of mind . . .
Well, maybe it is better so;
We all in life our level find,
And mine, I guess, is pretty low.

Yet as I sit with pipe alight
Beside the cabin-fire, it's queer
This mind of mine must take to-night
The backward trail of fifty year.
The school-house and the Christmas tree;
The children with their cheeks a-glow;
Two bright blue eyes that smile on me . . .
Just half a century ago.

Again (it's maybe forty years),
With faith and trust almost divine,
These same blue eyes, abrim with tears,
Through depths of love look into mine.
A parting, tender, soft and low,
With arms that cling and lips that cleave . . .
Ah me! it's all so long ago,
Yet seems so sweet this Christmas Eve.

Just thirty years ago, again . . .
We say a bitter, last good-bye;
Our lips are white with wrath and pain;
Our little children cling and cry.
Whose was the fault? it matters not,
For man and woman both deceive;
It's buried now and all forgot,
Forgiven, too, this Christmas Eve.

And she (God pity me) is dead;
Our children men and women grown.
I like to think that they are wed,
With little children of their own,
That crowd around their Christmas tree . . .
I would not ever have them grieve,
Or shed a single tear for me,
To mar their joy this Christmas Eve.

Stripped to the buff and gaunt and still
Lies all the land in grim distress.
Like lost soul wailing, long and shrill,
A wolf-howl cleaves the emptiness.
Then hushed as Death is everything.
The moon rides haggard and forlorn . . .
"O hark the herald angels sing!"
God bless all men -- it's Christmas morn.

Robert Service, from The Spell of the Yukon








Anonymous

When at the sign: Anthology
I climbed aboard the lyric bus,
The poems that appeal to me
Are often by Anonymous.
Behold amid the classic crew
Is one of whom Fame made no fuss,
A rhyming rascal no one knew,--Anonymous.

My name's a dud: 'mid poets I'm
A leek among asparagus;
Yet let me make a lilt of rhyme
And publish it anonymous;
Sweet, simple, short, a snatch of song
Anthologists might prize, and thus
My lyric life I might prolong,--Anonymous.

So when senile and all forgot
My memory is minimus,
In some anthology new-bought
I'll read a rhyme anonymous:
A saucy air that pleaseth me,
And I will say: "Who is this cuss?"
And wonder: "Are you he or she,--Anonymous?"


(Thanks to Gene O'Quinn for leading us to this poem and to The Original Home Page of Robert Service for their kind permission to post it.)








The Men That Don't Fit In

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 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 lifelong race.

And each forgets that his youth has fled,
Forgets that his prime is past,
Till he stands one day, with a hope that's dead,
In the glare of the truth at last.

He has failed, he has failed; he has missed his chance;
He has just done things by half.
Life's been a jolly good joke on him,
And now is the time to laugh.

Ha, ha! He is one of the Legion Lost;
He was never meant to win;
He's a rolling stone, and it's bred in the bone;
He's a man who won't fit in.

From The Spell of the Yukon and Other Verses







The Cow-Juice Cure

The clover was in blossom, an' the year was at the June,
When Flap-jack Billy hit the town, likewise O'Flynn's saloon.
The frost was on the fodder an' the wind was growin' keen,
When Billy got to seein' snakes in Sullivan's shebeen.

Then in meandered Deep-hole Dan, once comrade of the cup:
"Oh Billy, for the love of Mike, why don't ye sober up?
I've got the gorgus recipay, 'tis smooth an' slick as silk --
Jest quit yer strangle-holt on hooch, an' irrigate with milk.

"Lackteeal flooid is the lubrication you require;
Yer nervus frame-up's like a bunch of snarled piano wire.
You want to get it coated up with addypose tishoo,
So's it will work elastic-like, an' milk's the dope for you."

Well, Billy was complyable, an' in a month it's strange,
That cow-juice seemed to oppyrate a most amazin' change.
"Call up the water-wagon, Dan, an' book my seat," sez he.
"'Tis mighty queer," sez Deep-hole Dan, "'twas just the same with me."

They shanghaied little Tim O'Shane, they cached him safe away,
An' though he objurgated some, they "cured" him night an' day;
An' pretty soon there came the change amazin' to explain:
"I'll never take another drink," sez Timothy O'Shane.

They tried it out on Spike Muldoon, that toper of renown;
They put it over Grouch McGraw, the terror of the town.
They roped in "tanks" from far and near, an' every test was sure,
An' like a flame there ran the fame of Deep-hole's Cow-juice Cure.

"It's mighty queer," sez Deep-hole Dan, "I'm puzzled through and through;
It's only milk from Riley's ranch, no other milk will do."
An' it jest happened on that night with no predictive plan,
He left some milk from Riley's ranch a-settin' in a pan;

An' picture his amazement when he poured that milk next day --
There in the bottom of the pan a dozen "colours" lay.
"Well, what d'ye know 'bout that," sez Dan; "Gosh ding my dasted eyes,
We've been an' had the Gold Cure, Bill, an' none of us was wise.

The milk's free-millin' that's a cinch; there's colours everywhere.
Now, let us figger this thing out -- how does the dust git there?
`Gold from the grass-roots down', they say -- why, Bill! we've got it cold --
Them cows what nibbles up the grass, jest nibbles up the gold.

We're blasted, bloomin' millionaires; dissemble an' lie low:
We'll follow them gold-bearin' cows, an' prospect where they go."
An' so it came to pass, fer weeks them miners might be found
A-sneakin' round on Riley's ranch, an' snipin' at the ground;

Till even Riley stops an' stares, an' presently allows:
"Them boys appear to take a mighty interest in cows."
An' night an' day they shadowed each auriferous bovine,
An' panned the grass-roots on their trail, yet nivver gold they seen.

An' all that season, secret-like, they worked an' nothin' found;
An' there was colours in the milk, but none was in the ground.
An' mighty desperate was they, an' down upon their luck,
When sudden, inspiration like, the source of it they struck.

An' where d'ye think they traced it to? it grieves my heart to tell --
In the black sand at the bottom of that wicked milkman's well.


From Rhymes of a Rolling Stone, 1912








The Land Of Beyond

Have ever you heard of the Land of Beyond,
That dreams at the gates of the day?
Alluring it lies at the skirts of the skies,
And ever so far away;
Alluring it calls: O ye the yoke galls,
And ye of the trail overfond,
With saddle and pack, by paddle and track,
Let's go to the Land of Beyond!

Have ever you stood where the silences brood,
And vast the horizons begin,
At the dawn of the day to behold far away
The goal you would strive for and win?
Yet ah! in the night when you gain to the height,
With the vast pool of heaven star-spawned,
Afar and agleam, like a valley of dream,
Still mocks you a Land of Beyond.

Thank God! there is always a Land of Beyond
For us who are true to the trail;
A vision to seek, a beckoning peak,
A farness that never will fail;
A pride in our soul that mocks at a goal,
A manhood that irks at a bond,
And try how we will, unattainable still,
Behold it, our Land of Beyond!


From Rhymes of a Rolling Stone, 1912








The Ballad of One-Eyed Mike

This is the tale that was told to me by the man with the crystal eye,
As I smoked my pipe in the camp-fire light, and the Glories swept the sky;
As the Northlights gleamed and curved and streamed, and the bottle of "hooch" was dry.

A man once aimed that my life be shamed, and wrought me a deathly wrong;
I vowed one day I would well repay, but the heft of his hate was strong.
He thonged me East and he thonged me West; he harried me back and forth,
Till I fled in fright from his peerless spite to the bleak, bald-headed North.

And there I lay, and for many a day I hatched plan after plan,
For a golden haul of the wherewithal to crush and to kill my man;
And there I strove, and there I clove through the drift of icy streams;
And there I fought, and there I sought for the pay-streak of my dreams.

So twenty years, with their hopes and fears and smiles and tears and such,
Went by and left me long bereft of hope of the Midas touch;
About as fat as a chancel rat, and lo! despite my will,
In the weary fight I had clean lost sight of the man I sought to kill.

'Twas so far away, that evil day when I prayed to the Prince of Gloom
For the savage strength and the sullen length of life to work his doom.
Nor sign nor word had I seen or heard, and it happed so long ago;
My youth was gone and my memory wan, and I willed it even so.

It fell one night in the waning light by the Yukon's oily flow,
I smoked and sat as I marvelled at the sky's port-winey glow;
Till it paled away to an absinthe gray, and the river seemed to shrink,
All wobbly flakes and wriggling snakes and goblin eyes a-wink.

'Twas weird to see and it 'wildered me in a queer, hypnotic dream,
Till I saw a spot like an inky blot come floating down the stream;
It bobbed and swung; it sheered and hung; it romped round in a ring;
It seemed to play in a tricksome way; it sure was a merry thing.

In freakish flights strange oily lights came fluttering round its head,
Like butterflies of a monster size--then I knew it for the Dead.
Its face was rubbed and slicked and scrubbed as smooth as a shaven pate;
In the silver snakes that the water makes it gleamed like a dinner-plate.

It gurgled near, and clear and clear and large and large it grew;
It stood upright in a ring of light and it looked me through and through.
It weltered round with a woozy sound, and ere I could retreat,
With the witless roll of a sodden soul it wantoned to my feet.

And here I swear by this Cross I wear, I heard that "floater" say:
"I am the man from whom you ran, the man you sought to slay.
That you may note and gaze and gloat, and say `Revenge is sweet,'
In the grit and grime of the river's slime I am rotting at your feet.

"The ill we rue we must e'en undo, though it rive us bone from bone;
So it came about that I sought you out, for I prayed I might atone.
I did you wrong, and for long and long I sought where you might live;
And now you're found, though I'm dead and drowned, I beg you to forgive."

So sad it seemed, and its cheek-bones gleamed, and its fingers flicked the shore;
And it lapped and lay in a weary way, and its hands met to implore;
That I gently said: "Poor, restless dead, I would never work you woe;
Though the wrong you rue you can ne'er undo, I forgave you long ago."

Then, wonder-wise, I rubbed my eyes and I woke from a horrid dream.
The moon rode high in the naked sky, and something bobbed in the stream.
It held my sight in a patch of light, and then it sheered from the shore;
It dipped and sank by a hollow bank, and I never saw it more.

This was the tale he told to me, that man so warped and gray,
Ere he slept and dreamed, and the camp-fire gleamed in his eye in a wolfish way--
That crystal eye that raked the sky in the weird Auroral ray.


From Ballads of a Cheechako, 1909









The Three Voices

The waves have a story to tell me,
As I lie on the lonely beach;
Chanting aloft in the pine-tops,
The wind has a lesson to teach;
But the stars sing an anthem of glory
I cannot put into speech.

The waves tell of ocean spaces,
Of hearts that are wild and brave,
Of populous city places,
Of desolate shores they lave,
Of men who sally in quest of gold
To sink in an ocean grave.

The wind is a mighty roamer;
He bids me keep me free,
Clean from the taint of the gold-lust,
Hardy and pure as he;
Cling with my love to nature,
As a child to the mother-knee.

But the stars throng out in their glory,
And they sing of the God in man;
They sing of the Mighty Master,
Of the loom his fingers span,
Where a star or a soul is a part of the whole,
And weft in the wondrous plan.

Here by the camp-fire's flicker,
Deep in my blanket curled,
I long for the peace of the pine-gloom,
When the scroll of the Lord is unfurled,
And the wind and the wave are silent,
And world is singing to world.

From The Spell of the Yukon








My Masterpiece

It's slim and trim and bound in blue;
Its leaves are crisp and edged with gold;
Its words are simple, stalwart too;
Its thoughts are tender, wise and bold.
Its pages scintillate with wit;
Its pathos clutches at my throat:
Oh, how I love each line of it!
That Little Book I Never Wrote.

In dreams I see it praised and prized
By all, from plowman unto peer;
It's pencil-marked and memorized,
It's loaned (and not returned, I fear);
It's worn and torn and travel-tossed,
And even dusky natives quote
That classic that the world has lost,
The Little Book I Never Wrote.

Poor ghost! For homes you've failed to cheer,
For grieving hearts uncomforted,
Don't haunt me now...Alas! I fear
The fire of Inspiration's dead.
A humdrum way I go to-night,
From all I hoped and dreamed remote:
Too late...a better man must write
That Little Book I Never Wrote.

From Ballads of a Bohemian






--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Links and more ...



The Original Home Page of Robert Service is the place for Service information, including the opening recording of his voice ("Greetings from an old sourdough"), comprehensive information, much poetry, and useful links to other Service sites.
The Gutenberg Text Project includes the complete text of five Service books of verse: Ballads of a Bohemian, Rhymes of a Red Cross Man, Rhymes of a Rolling Stone, Ballads of a Cheechako, and The Spell of the Yukon.
Kilwinning, Scotland, Service spent much of his childhooh in Kilwinning, and this page has some interesting photos and quotes. Service referred to Kilwinning as "the long, grey town," which might explain the unconventional tribute paid on this page.
First Lariat Laureate Rod Nichols has a fine poetic tribute to Robert Service at his site.
Cellist Christine Hanson has an extraordinary CD, The Cremation of Sam McGee, on which she and a 9-piece ensemble bring Robert Service's famous poem alive in an expressive, captivating performance. The original live performance in Glasgow, Scotland, in 2005 was praised by Rob Adams of the Glasgow Herald, "A brilliantly atmospheric travelogue in music, words and pictures, Christine Hanson's Sam McGee presentation celebrates both the Scottish birthplace of Yukon poet Robert W. Service and his greatest creation, the irascible, ill-fated and fascinating Sam McGee."

Singer and songwriter Michael Marra narrates the poem throughout the first part of the 70-minute CD, which also includes an additional all-instrumental presentation of the music. Other musicians include fiddlers Bruce MacGregor and Sidan O'Rourke, Kevin Murphy on guitar and mandolin, Rick Taylor on trombone, Kevin McGuire on bass, Brian McAlpine on piano and accordion, and James Mackintosh on percussion.

Originally from Alberta, Hanson moved to the British Isles several years ago. A commission from the New Voices project of the Celtic Connections Festival in Glasgow (she was the first non-Scot to receive a commission) gave her the opportunity to create The Cremation of Sam McGee. Read a June, 2006 Edmonton Journal article, "Cellist wins praise for adaptation of Service poem" by Roger Levesque for more about Christine Hanson and her work. (See our feature on Robert Service here, including the poem, The Cremation of Sam McGee).

Christine Hanson's The Creation of Sam McGee is available for $21.99 US postpaid, from Gerry Hanson, 5116-151 street, Edmonton Alberta, Canada T6H 4Z8 [phone] (make check or money order to "Christine Hanson") or order by credit card on line from Indie Pool. Visit Christine Hanson's web site: www.christinehanson.com.





Service's Books

Service was a prolific writer, with over 1000 poems and more than 45 books of verse to his credit. He also wrote novels and two autobiographical books. Movies were made from his poem "The Shooting of Dan McGrew" and several of his novels.



The versions of his poems on this page are from two volumes from Hancock House. Those books' back covers give a good introduction to Service and to their books:

Robert Service started out as a bank teller, but that changed dramatically in 1904 when his bank transferred him to Whitehorse in the Yukon Territory. Like everybody else, Service was smitten with the gold fever of the great Klondike gold rush. Only Service mined words, not gold, and within five years was famous as the poet who had captured the essence of the fever, the adventure, the men, and the women. Hancock House Publishers brings back the best of Service in two softcover volumes: The Shooting of Dan McGrew and The Cremation of Sam McGee. The magic of the words is beautifully captured by award-winning artist Marken Van Nimwegen.



Hancock House publishes other western history and poetry, including the works of our Honored Guests Mike Puhallo and Brian Brannon.



This incomplete list of his books is compiled from the holdings of the Library of Congress:

Spell of the Yukon, and Other Verses, 1907
Ballads of a Cheechako, 1909
Trail of '98; a Northland Romance, 1911
Rhymes of a Rolling Stone, 1912
Pretender; a Story of the Latin Quarter, 1914
Rhymes of a Red Cross Man, 1916
Complete Poetical Works of Robert W. Service, 1921
Ballads of a Bohemian, 1921
Roughneck, 1923
Master of the Microbe: a Fantastic Romance, 1926
House of Fear; 1927
Why Not Grow Young?, or, Living for Longevity, 1928
Collected Verse of Robert Service, 1930
Bar-Room Ballads, 1940
Complete Poems of Robert Service, 1942
Ploughman of the Moon; an Adventure into Memory, 1945 (autobiography)
Harper of Heaven, a Record of Radiant Living, 1948 (autobiography)
Songs of a Sun-lover : a Book of Light Verse, 1949
Rhymes of a Roughneck, 1950
Lyrics of a Low Brow, 1951
Rhymes of a Rebel, 1952
Best of Robert Service, 1953
Carols of an Old Codger, 1954
Rhymes for My Rags, 1956



There are collections of Service's poetry in print. We recommend these two volumes from Hancock House:


The Shooting of Dan McGrew and other poems

The Cremation of Sam McGee and other poems



And this collection available from Amazon (along with other titles):

The Collected Poems of Robert Service











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