FOLK COLLECTION 11: The Skaggs Foundation Cowboy Poetry Collection
29769 results found for "No Search Criteria Set"Book Title
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Rhymes of a Rolling Stone
FC 11 S-63
55
Robert Service
The Atavist
What are you doing here, Tom Thorne, on the white top-knot o' the world, Where the wind has the cut of a naked knife and the stars are rapier keen? Hugging a smudgy willow fire, deep in a lynx robe curled, You that's a lord's own sown, Tom Thorne--what does your madness mean?
Rhymes of a Rolling Stone
FC 11 S-63
59
Robert Service
The Sceptic
My Father Christmas passed away When I was barely seven. At twenty-one, alack-a-day, I lost my hope of heaven.
Rhymes of a Rolling Stone
FC 11 S-63
60
Robert Service
The Rover I
Oh, how good it is to be Foot-loose and heart-free! Just my dog and pipe and I, underneath the vast sky; Trail to try and goal to win, white road and cool inn; Fields to lure a lad afar, clear spring and still star.
Rhymes of a Rolling Stone
FC 11 S-63
61
Robert Service
The Rover II
Yet how good it is to come Home at last, home, home! On the clover swings the bee, overhead's the hale tree Sky of turquoise gleams through, yonder glints the lake's blue. In a hammock let's swing, weary of wandering.
Rhymes of a Rolling Stone
FC 11 S-63
62
Robert Service
Barb-Wire Bill
At dawn of day the white land lay all gruesome-like and grim, When Bill Mc'Gee he says to me: "We've got to do it, Jim. We've got to make Fort Liard quick. I know the river's bad, But, oh! the little woman's sick...why! don't you savvy, lad?"
Rhymes of a Rolling Stone
FC 11 S-63
68
Robert Service
"?"
If you had the choice of two women to wed, (Though of course the idea is quite absurd) And the first from her heels to her dainty head Was charming in every sense of the word: And yet in the past (I grieve to state), She enver had been exactly "straight."
Rhymes of a Rolling Stone
FC 11 S-63
69
Robert Service
Just Think!
Just think! some night the stars will gleam Upon a cold, grey stone, And trace a name with silver beam, And lo! 'twill be your own. That night is speeding on to greet Your epitaphic rhyme. Your life is but a little beat Within the heart of Time.
Rhymes of a Rolling Stone
FC 11 S-63
70
Robert Service
The Lunger
Jack would laugh an' joke all day; Never saw a lad so gray; Singin' like a medder lark, Loaded to the Plimsoll mark With God's sunshine was that boy; Had a strangle-holt on Joy.
Rhymes of a Rolling Stone
FC 11 S-63
74
Robert Service
The Mountain And The Lake
I know a mountain thrilling to the stars, Peerless and pure, and pinnacled with snow; Glimpsing the golden dawn o'er coral bars, Flaunting the vanisht sunset's garnet glow.
Rhymes of a Rolling Stone
FC 11 S-63
76
Robert Service
The Headliner And The Breadliner
Moko, the Educated Ape is here, The pet of vaudeville, so the posters say, And every night the gaping people pay To see him in his panolply appear; To see him pad his paunch with dainty cheer.
Rhymes of a Rolling Stone
FC 11 S-63
77
Robert Service
Death In The Arctic I
I took the clock down from the shelf; "At eight," said I, "I shoot myself." It lacked a minute of the hour, And as I waited all a-cower, A skinful of black, boding pain, Bits of my life came back again.
Rhymes of a Rolling Stone
FC 11 S-63
78
Robert Service
Death In The Arctic II
For days the igloo has been dark; But now the rag wick sends a spark That glitters in the icy air, And wakes frost sapphires everywhere; Bright, bitter flames, that adder-like Dart here and there, yet fear to strike.
Rhymes of a Rolling Stone
FC 11 S-63
79
Robert Service
Death In The Arctic III
Curse this silence soft and black! Sting, little light, the shadows back! Dance, little fame, with freakish glee! Twinkle with brilliant mockery! Glitter on ice-robed roof and floor!
Rhymes of a Rolling Stone
FC 11 S-63
80
Robert Service
Death In The Arctic IV
Above the igloo piteous flies Our frayed flag to the frozen skies. Oh, would you know how earth can be A hell-- go north of Eighty-three! Go, scan the snows day after day, And hope for help, and pray and pray.
Rhymes of a Rolling Stone
FC 11 S-63
81
Robert Service
Death In The Arctic V
Olaf, the Blonde, was first to go; Bitten his eyes were by the snow; Sightless and sealed his eyes of blue, So that he died before I knew. Here in those poor weak arms he died: "Wolves will not get you, lad," I lied.
Rhymes of a Rolling Stone
FC 11 S-63
82
Robert Service
Death In The Arctic VI
Big Eric gave up months ago. But seldom do men suffer so. His feet sloughed off, his fingers died, His hands shrunk up and mummified. I had to feed him like a child; Yet he was valiant, joked and smiled, Talked of his wife and little one.
Rhymes of a Rolling Stone
FC 11 S-63
83
Robert Service
Death In The Arctic VII
Often I start up in the dark, Thinking the sound of bells to hear. Often I wake from sleep "Oh, hark! Help...it is coming...near and near." Blindly I reel toward the door; There the snow billows bleak and bare; Blindly I seek my den once more, Silence and darkness and despair.
Rhymes of a Rolling Stone
FC 11 S-63
84
Robert Service
Death In The Arctic VIII
Oh, I have sworn! the hour is nigh: When it strikes eight, I die, I die. Raise up the gun--it stings my brow.
Rhymes of a Rolling Stone
FC 11 S-63
85
Robert Service
Death In The Arctic IX
Phantoms and fears and ghosts have gone. Peace seems to nestle in my brain. Lo! the clock stopped, I'm living on; Heart-sick I was, and less than sane. Yet do I scorn the thing I planned, Hearing a voice: "O coward, fight!"
Rhymes of a Rolling Stone
FC 11 S-63
86
Robert Service
Death In The Arctic X
Hark! what is that? Bells, dogs again! Is it a dream? I sob and cry. See! the door opens, fur-clad men Rush to my rescue; frail am I; Feeble and dying, dazed and glad. There is the pistol where it dropped.
Rhymes of a Rolling Stone
FC 11 S-63
87
Robert Service
Dreams Are Best
I just think that dreams are best, Just to sit and fancy things; Give your gold no acid test, Try not how your silver rings; Fancy women pure and good, Fancy men upright and true: Fortressed in your solitude, Let Life be a dream to you.
Rhymes of a Rolling Stone
FC 11 S-63
89
Robert Service
The Quitter
When you're lost in the Wild, and you're scared as a child, And Death looks you bang in the eye, And you're sore as a boil, it's according to Hoyle To cock your revolver and...die. But the Code of a Man says: "Fight all you can," And self-dissolution is barred.
Rhymes of a Rolling Stone
FC 11 S-63
91
Robert Service
The Cow Juice Cure
The clover was in blossom, an' the year was at the June, When Flap-jack Billy hit the town, likewise O'Flynn's saloon. The frost was on the fodder an' the wind was growin' keen, When Billy got to seein' snakes in Sullivan's shebeen.
Rhymes of a Rolling Stone
FC 11 S-63
95
Robert Service
While The Bannock Bakes
Light up your pipe again, old chum, and sit awhile with me; I've got to watch the bannock bake--how restful is the air! You'd little think that we were somewhere north of Sixty-three, Though where I don't exactly know, and don't precisely care.
Rhymes of a Rolling Stone
FC 11 S-63
102
Robert Service
The Lost Master
"And when I come to die," he said, "Ye shall not lay me out in state, Nor leave your laurels at my head, Nor cause your men of speech orate; No monument your gift shall be, No column in the Hall of Fame; But just this line ye grave for me: "He played the game."