Robert William Service

Give me the scorn of the stars and a peak defiant;

Night and a trail unknown and a heart reliant.Give me to live and love in the old, bold fashion;A soldier’s billet at night and a soldier’s ration;A heart that leaps to the fight with a soldier’s passion.For I hold as a simple faith there’s no denying:The trade of a soldier’s the only trade worth plying;The…

This is the tale that was told to me by the man with the crystal eye,

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…

The cow-moose comes to water, and the beaver’s overbold,

The teepee stars the vivid sward with russet, red and gold,And in the velvet gloom the fire’s a-gleam.The night is ripe with quiet, rich with incense of the pine;From sanctuary lake I hear the loon;The peaks are bright against the blue, and drenched with sunset wine,And like a silver bubble is the moon.Cloud-high I climbed…

Heed me, feed me, I am hungry, I am red-tongued with desire;

Heap them on me, let me hug them to my eager heart of fire,Roaring, soaring up to heaven as a symbol and a sign.Bring me knots of sunny maple, silver birch and tamarack;Leaping, sweeping, I will lap them with my ardent wings of flame;I will kindle them to glory, I will beat the darkness back;Streaming,…