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.

Robert William Service

Robert William Service was a British-Canadian poet and writer, often referred to as 'the Bard of the Yukon.' He is best known for his poems about the Canadian North, particularly the Yukon Territory. Service's works include 'The Shooting of Dan McGrew' and 'The Cremation of Sam McGee,' which have contributed significantly to Canadian literature. His vivid and robust storytelling style, often dramatic and humorous, captivated audiences and made him a prominent literary figure of his time.

Robert William Service

At Thirty-Five

Robert William Service, Simple Poetry

Lost

Robert William Service, Simple Poetry

The Coward

Robert William Service, Simple Poetry

The Spirit of the Unborn Babe

Robert William Service, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

The Logger

    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...

Robert William Service

Carry On!

It's easy to fight when everything's right,
And you're mad with the thrill and the glory;
It's easy to cheer when victory's near,
And wallow in fields that are gory.
It's a different song when everything's wrong,
When you're feeling infernally mortal;
When it's ten against one, and hope there is none,
Buck up, little soldier, and chortle:

Carry on! Carry on!
There isn't much punch in your blow.
You're glaring and staring and hitting out blind;
You're muddy and bloody, but never you mind.
Carry on! Carry on!
You haven't the ghost of a show.
It's looking like death, but while you've a breath,
Carry on, my son! Carry on!

And so in the strife of the battle of life
It's easy to fight when you're winning;
It's easy to slave, and starve and be b...

Robert William Service

Wounded

Is it not strange? A year ago to-day,
With scarce a thought beyond the hum-drum round,
I did my decent job and earned my pay;
Was averagely happy, I'll be bound.
Ay, in my little groove I was content,
Seeing my life run smoothly to the end,
With prosy days in stolid labour spent,
And jolly nights, a pipe, a glass, a friend.
In God's good time a hearth fire's cosy gleam,
A wife and kids, and all a fellow needs;
When presto! like a bubble goes my dream:
I leap upon the Stage of Splendid Deeds.
I yell with rage; I wallow deep in gore:
I, that was clerk in a drysalter's store.

Stranger than any book I've ever read.
Here on the reeking battlefield I lie,
Under the stars, propped up with smeary dead,
Like too, if no one takes me in, to die.
Hit on th...

Robert William Service

The Revelation

    The same old sprint in the morning, boys, to the same old din and smut;
    Chained all day to the same old desk, down in the same old rut;
    Posting the same old greasy books, catching the same old train:
    Oh, how will I manage to stick it all, if I ever get back again?

We've bidden good-bye to life in a cage, we're finished with pushing a pen;
They're pumping us full of bellicose rage, they're showing us how to be men.
We're only beginning to find ourselves; we're wonders of brawn and thew;
But when we go back to our Sissy jobs, - oh, what are we going to do?

For shoulders curved with the counter stoop will be carried erect and square;
And faces white from the office light will be bronzed by the open air;
And we'll walk with the stride of a new-born pride, wit...

Robert William Service

The Prospector

Where the ragged, snow-capped saw tooth
    Cuts the azure of the sky
And watches o'er the lonely land
    As ages wander by;
Where the sentinel pines in grandeur
    Murmur to the glacier stream
As it, ice-gorged, gluts the canyon,
    Never brightened by the gleam
Of sun at brightest noon day,
    Nor moon of Arctic night,
And whose only link with Heaven
    Is the fitful Northern Light.
Where the Whistler shrills in triumph
    And the Big Horn dreams in peace,
Where the Brown Bear skulks to cover
    Up where silence holds the lease;
Where the land is as God left it
    Nor has known the tread of man,
There's a treasure ledge a-waiting--
    Go and find it if you can.

If your heart be steeled to triumph
    Nor beats less at ...

Pat O'Cotter

Over the Parapet

All day long when the shells sail over
I stand at the sandbags and take my chance;
But at night, at night I'm a reckless rover,
And over the parapet gleams Romance.
Romance! Romance! How I've dreamed it, writing
Dreary old records of money and mart,
Me with my head chuckful of fighting
And the blood of vikings to thrill my heart.

But little I thought that my time was coming,
Sudden and splendid, supreme and soon;
And here I am with the bullets humming
As I crawl and I curse the light of the moon.
Out alone, for adventure thirsting,
Out in mysterious No Man's Land;
Prone with the dead when a star-shell, bursting,
Flares on the horrors on every hand.
There are ruby stars and they drip and wiggle;
And the grasses gleam in a light blood-red;
There ...

Robert William Service