I Eat Poetry

Proud Destiny

"Young man, a noble part you play
To mould the mind of youth
To guide it on the starry way
Of Wisdom and of Truth . . ."
So spoke that old, fat-headed fool,
The Chairman of our School.

I wish he had my class to teach
Just for a single day;
I don't think he would want to preach,
But rather want to pray.
And count the avocations curst
A teacher's is the worst.

I put my dreary books away,
My head is like to split;
Tomorrow is another day,
I must prepare for it:
A pile of essays to correct,
Till bedtime, I expect.

My boys are little beasts, I know;
They hate me more or less;
I wield the cane with vigour, so
They've reason I confess.
Their grubby minds I grimly cram
To pass a fool exam.

( Oh! Could I quit this life tonight )

By Robert W. Service

The Contrast

Fat lady, in your four-wheeled chair,
Dolled up to beat the band,
At me you arrogantly stare
With gold lorgnette in hand.
Oh how you differ from the dame
So shabby, gaunt and grey,
With legs rheumatically lame,
Who steers you on your way.

Nay, jewelled lady, look not back
Lest you should be disturbed
To see the skinny hag in black
Who boosts you up the curb.
Of course I know you get her cheap,
Since she's a lady too,
And bite to eat and bed to sleep
Maybe are all her due.

Alas for those who give us aid
Yet need more help than we!
And though she thinks the wages paid
Are almost charity,
I'd love to see that lady fat
Lug round that hefty chair,
While with lorgnette and feathered hat
Her handmaid lounges there.

By Robert W. Service

Fiddler

Oh! I have built a house at last,
To fill with music night and say;
For I have laboured in the past
And had so small a time to play.
My house is of a whin-grey stone;
Its walls are bare for poor I be,
But with my fiddle all alone,
I'll have rare company.

My fiddle's old and so am I.
For it I've often longed in vain.
Bleak years and years I've layed it bye,
But now I'll take it up again.
For in four frail gut strings I know
All music sleeps for me to wake,
And here before the peat-fire glow
Fine melody I'll make.

( I'll leave my fiddle by the bed, )

By Robert W. Service

The Ballad of the Ice-Worm Cocktail

To Dawson Town came Percy Brown from London on the Thames.
A pane of glass was in his eye, and stockings on his stems.
Upon the shoulder of his coat a leather pad he wore,
To rest his deadly rifle when it wasn't seeking gore;
The which it must have often been, for Major Percy Brown,
According to his story was a hunter of renown,
Who in the Murrumbidgee wilds had stalked the kangaroo
And killed the cassowary on the plains of Timbuctoo.
And now the Arctic fox he meant to follow to its lair,
And it was also his intent to beard the Artic hare...
Which facts concerning Major Brown I merely tell because
I fain would have you know him for the Nimrod that he was.

Now Skipper Grey and Deacon White were sitting in the shack,
And sampling of the whisky that pertained to Sheriff Black.
Said Skipper Grey: "I want to say a word about this Brown:
The piker's sticking out his chest as if he owned the town."
Said Sheriff Black: "He has no lack of frigorated cheek;
He called himself a Sourdough when he'd just been here a week."
Said Deacon White: "Methinks you're right, and so I have a plan
By which I hope to prove to-night the mettle of the man.
Just meet me where the hooch-bird sings, and though our ways be rude
We'll make a proper Sourdough of this Piccadilly dude."

( Within the Malamute Saloon were gathered all the gang; )

By Robert W. Service