The Best Of Robert Service

The Best Of Robert Service
By Robert Service

Richard (The Bampa) gave me this book to read. Apparently the author was passed down from his mother to him and now him to me. While it is a collection of poetry by Robert Service, like many collections of poetry it is a reflection of one mans life stories and complementary philosophy. After about a quarter of the way through the book, I found myself contrasting Service to Hemmingway, mostly because they are so different. Why I was compelled to do so or even mention it here is still a mystery to me. Perhaps the Caribbean formed Hemmingway and the Yukon formed Service. Hemmingway’s head was thick with rum and he led a life of laziness and sin, while Service lived a rugged life in the Pacific Northwest that formed a more commendable man. You can get lost in Hemmingway drunken mind. With Service the message is clear. Perhaps Service was the last of men of iron, as I would place Service one generation ahead of Hemmingway. Perhaps we all know the famous Hemmingway but once again I discover later in life another nugget passed over by too many and I now need to place Robert Service on the same shelf or one higher than Hemmingway. Or maybe it is simply because the Bampa gave me the book and he lives in Florida and I read it while sailing on the Caribbean.

The collection begins with many ballads of men doing courageous deed on a rugged frontier. Yes the ballads involve whiskey, women, and barbarian escapades; but behind each scene and event Service springs a surprising dose of humble and usually witty reality of the minds of his character(s). Service is clear on many points with his poetry and one point for sure is that the most esteemed man is he who chops his own wood and carries his own water, and fesses up to his own deeds or misdeeds. Service then moves in to a collection of shorter poems that reflect his time as a soldier in WWI. While he makes war a tragedy he does not betray those who gave their ultimate for a cause that always becomes blurred to those the far removed and living in the face of certain death.

His later poems seem to recognize, in verse, that he is a poet and that other people appreciate his poetry, and then finally, he appreciates other people’s appreciation of his poetry. The following is a poet’s (Robert Services’) way of expressing what I just wrote:

My poem may be yours indeed
In melody and tone,
If in its rhythm you can read
A music of your own,
If in its pale woof you can weave
Your lovelier design,
‘Twill make my lyric, I believe
More yours than mine

I’m but a prompter at the best;
Crude cues are all I give,
In simple stanzas I suggest-
‘Tis you who make them live,
My bit of rhyme is but a frame,
And if my lines you quote,
I think, although they bear my name
‘Tis you who wrote

Yours is the beauty that you see
In any words I sing;
The magic and the melody
‘Tis you, dear friend who bring.
Yea, by glory and the gleam,
The loveliness that lures
Your thought to starry heights of dream,
The poem’s yours.

Now some of you who know me well, have grown accustom to me striking a metaphor of rhyme & reason just in plain conversation. Some have said, “How do you think of these at the spur of a moment?” Some have had to bear witness to some of the poetry that I write. None publishable and all are subject to future edit. But I find that reading and writing poems helps express an essence as opposed to a black and white fact. In many cases the essence is more exact and always less controversial. And most importantly my book reviews/essays and my poetry are merely reflections of how I view my world. It is my way of sharing. Not writing it down would be my mistake. Robert Service would say the same thing this way:

It’s slim and trim and bound in blue;
It’s leaves are crisp and edged with gold;
Its words are simple, stalwart too;
Its thoughts are tender, wise and bold.
It’s 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 classis that the world has lost,
The Little Book I Never Wrote.

Poor ghost! Fore homes you’ve failed to cheer,
Fore 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.

I’ll leave you with this life’s experience. When I was a young lad I went on a tour of the famous Greenfield Village, a living museum of history. I was in an old house where the guide pointed out the “writing desk” with its quill pen and ink fountain. She said, “This was how people of times before television entertained themselves.” I thought how dreadful their lives were. Now at 50 I realize the reward from sharing more than just a howdy-do. I am grateful for the history found in the memoirs they left for us to learn from. I am also grateful for the historians who research for these gems of life’s stories and compose a “novel story”. Poets are doing more or less the same panning for gems in their mind. To be a part of this is what keeps me reading and writing.

I dog-eared the poems in this book that I go back a read, to make them my own. If you happen to pick up this book, I’d be curious to compare our lists. And as I complete the list I find it curious that there are twelve.

1. My Friends
2. The Land of Beyond
3. The Wonderlust
4. The Absinthe Drinkers
5. My MasterPiece
6. The Wonderer
7. The Quest
8. Yellow
9. Your Poem
10. Making Good
11. I Believe
12. My Highland Home