My rhymes are rough, and often in my rhyming
I’ve drifted, silver-sailed, on seas of dream,
Hearing afar the bells of Elfland chiming,
Seeing the groves of Arcadie agleam.
I was the thrall of Beauty that rejoices
From peak snow-diademed to regal star;
Yet to mine aerie ever pierced the voices,
The pregnant voices of the Things That Are.
The Here, the Now, the vast Forlorn around us;
The gold-delirium, the ferine strife;
The lusts that lure us on, the hates that hound us;
Our red rags in the patch-work quilt of Life.
The nameless men who nameless rivers travel,
And in strange valleys greet strange deaths alone;
The grim, intrepid ones who would unravel
The mysteries that shroud the Polar Zone.
These will I sing, and if one of you linger
Over my pages in the Long, Long Night,
And on some lone line lay a calloused finger,
Saying: “Lo! It’s human-true–it hits me right”;
Then will I count this loving toil well spent;
Then will I dream awhile–content, content.
(Robert William Service)
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Based on Topics: Life Poems, Night Poems, Dreams Poems, Beauty Poems, Hatred Poems, Mystery Poems, Travel PoemsBased on Keywords: chiming, agleam, intrepid, lusts, rhyming, unravel, elfland, aerie, arcadie, patch-work, silver-sailed