9 posts tagged “robert service”
We pitied him because
He lived alone;
His tiny cottage was
His only own.
His little garden had
A wall around;
Yet never was so glad
A bit of ground.
It seemed to fair rejoice
With flowers and fruit;
With blooms it found a voice
When ours was muts.
It smiled without a pause
In gracious glow:
I think it was because
He loved it so.
He had no news to read,
No rent to pay;
His vegetable need
He plucked each day.
His grateful garden gave
Him ample fare;
He lived without a crave,
Without a care.
His bread and milk and tea
Were all he bought;
To us he seemed to be
A sorry lot . . .
But when we're dead and gone,
With all our fuss,
I guess he'll carry on,
And laugh at us.
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Somehow the skies don't seem so blue
As they used to be;
Blossoms have a fainter hue,
Grass less green I see.
There's no twinkle in a star,
Dawns don't seem so gold . . .
Yet, of course, I know they are:
Guess I'm growing old.
Somehow sunshine seems less bright,
Birds less gladly sing;
Moons don't thrill me with delight,
There's no kick in Spring.
Hills are steeper now and I'm
Sensitive to cold;
Lines are not so keen to rhyme . . .
Gosh! I'm growing old.
Yet in spite of failing things
I've no cause to grieve;
Age with all its ailing brings
Blessings, I believe:
Kindo' gentles up the mind
As the hope we hold
That with loving we will find
Friendliness in human kind,
Grace in growing old.
Robert Service
It was National Poetry Day yesterday which reminded me I haven't posted any Robert Service for a while. Here he is describing what he was all about.
Lowly Laureate
O Sacred Muse, my lyre excuse! -
My verse is vagrant singing;
Rhyme I invoke for simple folk
Of penny-wise upbringing:
For Grannies grey to paste away
Within an album cover;
For maids in class to primly pass,
And lads to linger over.
I take the clay of every day
And mould it in my fashion;
I seek to trace the commonplace
With humor and compassion.
Of earth am I, and meekly try
To be supremely human:
To please, I plan, the little man,
And win the little women.
No evil theme shall daunt my dream
Of fellow-love and pity;
I tune my lute to prostitute,
To priest I pipe my ditty.
Though gutter-grime be in my rhyme,
I bow to altars holy. . . .
Lord, humble me, so I may be
A Laureate of the Lowly.
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Tranquillity
This morning on my pensive walk
I saw a fisher on a rock,
Who watched his ruby float careen
In waters bluely crystalline,
While silver fishes nosed his bait,
Yet hesitated ere they ate.
Nearby I saw a mother mild
Who knitted by her naked child,
And watched him as he romped with glee,
In golden sand, in singing sea,
Her eyes so blissfully love-lit
She gazed and gazed and ceased to knit.
And then I watched a painter chap,
Grey-haired, a grandfather, mayhap,
Who daubed with delicate caress
As if in love with loveliness,
And looked at me with vague surmise,
The joy of beauty in his eyes.
Yet in my Morning Rag I read
Of panicked peoples, dark with dread,
Of flame and famine near and far,
Of revolution, pest and war;
The fall of this, the rise of that,
The writhing proletariat. . . .
I saw the fisher from his hook The sky was gentleness and love, Robert Service
Take off a shiny perch to cook;
The mother garbed her laughing boy,
And sang a silver lilt of joy;
The artist, packing up his paint,
Went serenely as a saint.
The sea soft-crooning as a dove;
Peace reigned so brilliantly profound
In every sight, in every sound. . . .
Alas, what mockery for me!
Can peace be mine till Man be free?
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The above is a commercial Alexei Sayle did for Friends of the Earth. I must post some of Alexei's classic sketches but here he is in serious mode. The commercial uses Tesco's tag line "Every Little Helps" in an ironic way. Tesco have sattelite systems which analyze shopping patterns worldwide. In the UK they are doing everything from estate agency to dry cleaning, I believe they are doing in store funerals and weddings in places in England (Presumably they have a separate room!). Supermarket shopping is convenient and is very price competitive. Those of us who are involved at the 'coal face' of retailing must somehow try to compete. It remains to be seen just how much of the retail cake that Tesco, Asda etc. will capture but it seems they wont rest in trying to always capture a bigger share. This is all bad news for small family run businesses trying to survive in such a competitive market. In my business case we try to focus on personal service. We are also launching a web site soon (having dabbled on Ebay in the past).
The poem below from Robert Service written in the early part of the 20th century points out that running a small shop has perhaps always involved an element of risk!
The Wee Shop
She risked her all, they told me, bravely sinking
The pinched economies of thirty years;
And there the little shop was, meek and shrinking,
The sum of all her dreams and hopes and fears.
Ere it was opened I would see them in it,
The gray-haired dame, the daughter with her crutch;
So fond, so happy, hoarding every minute,
Like artists, for the final tender touch.
The opening day! I'm sure that to their seeming
Was never shop so wonderful as theirs;
With pyramids of jam-jars rubbed to gleaming;
Such vivid cans of peaches, prunes and pears;
And chocolate, and biscuits in glass cases,
And bon-bon bottles, many-hued and bright;
Yet nothing half so radiant as their faces,
Their eyes of hope, excitement and delight.
I entered: how they waited all a-flutter!
How awkwardly they weighed my acid-drops!
And then with all the thanks a tongue could utter
They bowed me from the kindliest of shops.
I'm sure that night their customers they numbered;
Discussed them all in happy, breathless speech;
And though quite worn and weary, ere they slumbered,
Sent heavenward a little prayer for each.
And so I watched with interest redoubled
That little shop, spent in it all I had;
And when I saw it empty I was troubled,
And when I saw them busy I was glad.
And when I dared to ask how things were going,
They told me, with a fine and gallant smile:
"Not badly . . . slow at first . . . There's never knowing . . .
'Twill surely pick up in a little while."
I'd often see them through the winter weather,
Behind the shutters by a light's faint speck,
Poring o'er books, their faces close together,
The lame girl's arm around her mother's neck.
They dressed their windows not one time but twenty,
Each change more pinched, more desperately neat;
Alas! I wondered if behind that plenty
The two who owned it had enough to eat.
Ah, who would dare to sing of tea and coffee?
The sadness of a stock unsold and dead;
The petty tragedy of melting toffee,
The sordid pathos of stale gingerbread.
Ignoble themes! And yet -- those haggard faces!
Within that little shop. . . . Oh, here I say
One does not need to look in lofty places
For tragic themes, they're round us every day.
And so I saw their agony, their fighting,
Their eyes of fear, their heartbreak, their despair;
And there the little shop is, black and blighting,
And all the world goes by and does not care.
They say she sought her old employer's pity,
Content to take the pittance he would give.
The lame girl? yes, she's working in the city;
She coughs a lot -- she hasn't long to live.
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Good picture montage and narration of another Service poem. Unfortunately I can't embed this but it is well worth a look. Click Here to view.
Robert Service described his own poetry as 'dogerell'. It was probably the self-effacing Scot in him which led him to this conclusion. His poetry was something I grew up with because my father loved Service's work and would often quote from it. There is hardly a Service poem which isn't either thought provoking, sad, funny or simply beautiful.
Click Here to read a brief biography of Service and a complete list of his work.
Maids in May
Three maids there were in meadow bright,
The eldest less then seven;
Their eyes were dancing with delight,
And innocent as Heaven.
Wild flowers they wound with tender glee,
Their cheeks with rapture rosy;
All radiant they smiled at me,
When I besought a posy.
She gave me a columbine,
And one a poppy brought me;
The tiniest, with eyes ashine,
A simple daisy sought me.
And as I went my sober way,
I heard their careless laughter;
Their hearts too happy with to-day
To care for what comes after.
. . . . . . .
That's long ago; they're gone, all three,
To walk amid the shadows;
Forgotten is their lyric glee
In still and sunny meadows.
For Columbine loved life too well,
And went adventure fairing;
And sank into the pit of hell,
And passed but little caring.
While Poppy was a poor man's wife,
And children had a-plenty;
And went, worn out with toil and strife
When she was five-and-twenty.
And Daisy died while yet a child,
As fragile blossoms perish,
When Winter winds are harsh and wild,
With none to shield and cherish.
Ah me! How fate is dark and dour
To little Children of the Poor.
Robert Service - Bar Room Ballads
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When I began this blogging lark I said I'd be referring to the poems of Robert Service who assisted in the naming of my blog. Service was a working man's poet and described his work as doggerel. He was certainly no Worsdworth but his ability to convey his message was second to none. He wrestled with his belief and in some poems he refers to "God" whilst in others he expresses atheistic sentiments.
The following is a poem called "Pantheist". Pantheism is atheism but with an acknowledgement that humanity has a spiritual dimension. It is an appreciation on a spiritual level of the wonders of nature and the beauty of things which cannot simply be explained by science and logic.
Pantheist
Lolling on a bank of thyme
Drunk with Spring I made this rhyme. . . .
Though peoples perish in defeat,
And races suffer to survive,
The sunshine never was so sweet,
So vast he joy to be alive;
The laughing leaves, the glowing grass
Proclaim how good it is to be;
The pines are lyric as I pass,
The hills hosannas sing to me.
Pink roses ring yon placid palm,
Soft shines the blossom of the peach;
The sapphire sea is satin calm,
With bell-like tinkle on the beach;
A lizard lazes in the sun,
A bee is bumbling to my hand;
Shy breezes whisper: "You are one
With us because you understand."
Yea, I am one with all I see,
With wind and wave, with pine and palm;
Their very elements in me
Are fused to make me what I am.
Through me their common life-stream flows,
And when I yield this human breath,
In leaf and blossom, bud and rose,
Live on I will . . . There is no Death.
Oh, let me flee from woeful things,
And listen to the linnet's song;
To solitude my spirit clings,
To sunny woodlands I belong.
O foolish men! Yourselves destroy.
But I from pain would win surcease. . . .
O Earth, grant me eternal joy!
O Nature - everlasting peace!
Amen.
It looks like it's time to get in to this blogging lark. I have been inspired to do this by two other bloggers http://almax.wordpress.com/ and http://theendlessnote.blogspot.com/ who both in their different ways present an interesting smorgesboard of thoughts, music and other items which I check in on regularly.
So why "Songs of a Sons Lover"? My late father loved the earthy poetry of Robert Service. Service witnessed the tough gritty world of the Yukon Gold Rush and wrote about it in verse. Service had a very critical eye and an acute understanding of human nature. He wrote in a simple style for the working man.
I shall no doubt share a few of his gems in the coming weeks and months.
One of his later collections was Songs of a Sun Lover Click Here . I have altered the title to accomodate my long time, irrational devotion to the fortunes of Dumbarton Football Club, nicknamed the Sons of the Rock, sometimes shortened to the Sons.
The Rock refers to Dumbarton Rock which you can see looming behind the club's stadium in this picture. It is a basalt plug which was the result of a volcanic erruption thousands of years ago. The Rock stands where the Rivers Clyde and
Leven meet and it was from where Mary Queen of Scots left to exile in France.
It certainly must be one of the most dramatic settings for a sports ground, well almost anywhere.
My other pastime is music. I am lead singer and harmonicist with Harmonica Lewinsky (geddit?). We are an ageing band of bluesmen who rehearse most weeks and fit in a gig or two per month. You can see us here
