Robert W. Service

Name: Rhymes of a Rolling Stone
Author: Robert W. Service

Summary

"Rhymes of a Rolling Stone" (1912), by Robert W. Service, is a lyrical collection of poems that captures the restless spirit of wanderlust and the stark beauty of the Northland. Through characters like Tom Thorne and themes of solitude, struggle, and the contrast between nature’s "gleam" and "gloom," Service explores the tension between human longing and the indifferent vastness of the wilderness.

The work’s vivid imagery—pine forests, Arctic trails, and the "star that gleams on a moss-grey stone"—reflects a yearning for freedom and a meditation on mortality, framed by the raw, unyielding landscape. Service’s verses, steeped in the rhythms of the frontier, synthesize the paradox of seeking comfort in isolation while craving connection, ultimately framing the human condition as a dance with both the sublime and the desolate.

Quotes from Rhymes of a Rolling Stone (Robert W. Service)

Robert W. Service, Rhymes of a Rolling Stone

“ And huh! but it's stinging and stabbing my sight — God bless you, old cabin, good-bye!
Heart o' the North
And when I come to the dim trail-end, I who have been Life's rover, This is all I would ask, my friend, Over and over and over: A little space on a stony hill With never another near me, Sky o' the North that's vast and still, With a single star to cheer me; Star that gleams on a moss-grey stone Graven by those who love me — There would I lie alone, alone, With a single pine above me; Pine that the north wind whinneys through — Oh, I have been Life's lover! ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Robert W. Service, Rhymes of a Rolling Stone

“ In a flannel shirt from earth's clean dirt, Here, pal, is my calloused hand! Oh, I love each day as a rover may, Nor seek to understand. To ENJOY is good enough for me; The gipsy of God am I; Then here's a hail to each flaring dawn! And here's a cheer to the night that's gone! And may I go a-roaming on Until the day I die! Then every star shall sing to me Its song of liberty; And every morn shall bring to me Its mandate to be free. In every throbbing vein of me I'll feel the vast Earth-call; O body, heart and brain of me Praise Him who made it all!
The Soldier of Fortune
"Deny your God!" ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Robert W. Service, Rhymes of a Rolling Stone

“ And you know that heart as few men know, and your eyes are fey and deep, With a "something lost" come welling back from the raw, red dawn of life: With woe and pain have you greatly lain, till out of abysmal sleep The soul of the Stone Age leaps in you, alert for the ancient strife. And if you came to our feast again, with its pomp and glee and glow, I think you would sit stone-still, Tom Thorne, and see in a daze of dream, A mad sun goading to frenzied flame the glittering gems of the snow, And a monster musk-ox bulking black against the blood-red gleam. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Robert W. Service, Rhymes of a Rolling Stone (1912)

“ That Death has got me cinched beyond a doubt;
Then I’ll crawl away from sight, and morosely in the night
My weary, wasted life will peter out.
Then the boys will gather round, and they’ll launch me in the ground,
And pile the stones the timber wolf to foil;
And the moaning pine will wave overhead a nameless grave,
Where the black snake in the sunshine loves to coil.
And they’ll leave me there alone, and perhaps with softened tone
Speak of me sometimes in the camp-fire’s glow,
As a played-out, broken chum, who has gone to Kingdom Come,
And who went the pace in England long ago. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Robert W. Service, Rhymes of a Rolling Stone

“ On the ragged edge of the world I'll roam, And the home of the wolf shall be my home, And a bunch of bones on the boundless snows The end of my trail . . . who knows, who knows! I'm dreaming to-night in the fire-glow, alone in my study tower, My books battalioned around me, my Kipling flat on my knee; But I'm not in the mood for reading, I haven't moved for an hour; Body and brain I'm weary, weary the heart of me; Weary of crushing a longing it's little I understand, For I thought that my trail was ended, I thought I had earned my rest ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Robert W. Service, Rhymes of a Rolling Stone

“ Gave it a home of fairest mould, Blest it, and called it — You. God gave the rose its grace of glow, And the lark its radiant glee; But, better than all, I know, I know God gave you, Heart, to me.
VII She was all sunshine in those dubious days; Our cabin beaconed with defiant light; We chattered by the friendly drift-wood blaze; Closer and closer cowered the hag-like night. A wolf-howl would have been a welcome sound, And there was none in all that stricken land; Yet with such silence, darkness, death around, Learned we to love as few can understand. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Robert W. Service, Rhymes of a Rolling Stone

“ Give me the Great Uncertain, the Barren Land for a floor, The Milky Way for a roof-beam, splendour and space and strife: Something to fight and die for — the limpid Lake of the Bear, The Empire of Empty Bellies, the dunes where the Dogribs dwell; Big things, real things, live things . . . here on my morris chair How I ache for the Northland! "Dinner and servants" — Hell!! Am I too old, I wonder? Can I take one trip more? Go to the granite-ribbed valleys, flooded with sunset wine, Peaks that pierce the aurora, rivers I must explore, Lakes of a thousand islands, millioning hordes of the Pine? ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Robert W. Service, Rhymes of a Rolling Stone

“ To oust out envy and hate and rage, To breathe with no alarm; For Nature shall be my anchorage, And none shall do me harm. To shun all lures that debauch the soul, The orgied rites of the rich; To eat my crust as a rover must With the rough-neck down in the ditch. To trudge by his side whate'er betide; To share his fire at night; To call him friend to the long trail-end, And to read his heart aright. To scorn all strife, and to view all life With the curious eyes of a child; From the plangent sea to the prairie, From the slum to the heart of the Wild. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Robert W. Service, Rhymes of a Rolling Stone

“ Glitter on ice-robed roof and floor! Jewel the bear-skin of the door! Gleam in my beard, illume my breath, Blanch the clock face that times my death! But do not pierce that murk so deep, Where in their sleeping-bags they sleep! But do not linger where they lie, They who had all the luck to die! . . . "There is nothing more to say; Let us part and go our way. Since it seems we can't agree, I will go across the sea. Proud of heart and strong am I; Not for woman will I sigh; Hold my head up gay and glad: You can find another lad. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Robert W. Service, Rhymes of a Rolling Stone

“ Woman-love and wistful heart, let the gipsy one depart. For the farness and the road are his glory and his goad. Oh, the lilt of youth and Spring! Eyes laugh and lips sing. Yea, but it is good to be Foot-loose and heart-free!
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; Tired of wild, uncertain lands, strange faces, faint hands. Has the wondrous world gone cold? Am I growing old, old? ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Robert W. Service, Rhymes of a Rolling Stone (1912)

“ And the peaks untrod that yearn to God, and the valleys undefiled;
Men soar with wings, and they bridle kings, but what is it all to you,
Wise in the ways of the wilderness, and strong with the strength of the Wild?
You have spent your life, you have waged your strife where never we play a part;
You have held the throne of the Great Unknown, you have ruled a kingdom vast:
—————————— But to-night there’s a strange, new trail for you, and you go, O weary heart!
To the place and rest of the Great Unguessed... at last, Tom Thorne, at last. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Robert W. Service, Rhymes of a Rolling Stone

“ No happy homes with love a-glow; No Santa Claus to make believe: Just snow and snow, and then more snow; It's Christmas Eve, it's Christmas Eve. And here am I where all things end, And Undesirables are hurled; A poor old man without a friend, Forgot and dead to all the world; Clean out of sight and out of mind . . . Well, maybe it is better so; We all in life our level find, And mine, I guess, is pretty low. Yet as I sit with pipe alight Beside the cabin-fire, it's queer This mind of mine must take to-night The backward trail of fifty year. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Robert W. Service, Rhymes of a Rolling Stone

“ The day of daring, doing, brightens clear, When the bed of spicy cedar and the jovial camp-fire Must only be a memory of cheer. There is hope and golden promise in the vast portentous dawn; There is glamour in the glad, effluent sky: Go and leave me; I will dream of you and love you when you're gone; I have served you, O my masters! let me die. A little heap of ashes, grey and sodden by the rain, Wind-scattered, blurred and blotted by the snow: Let that be all to tell of me, and glorious again, Ye things of greening gladness, leap and glow! ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Robert W. Service, Rhymes of a Rolling Stone

“ O ye the yoke galls, And ye of the trail overfond, With saddle and pack, by paddle and track, Let's go to the Land of Beyond! Have ever you stood where the silences brood, And vast the horizons begin, At the dawn of the day to behold far away The goal you would strive for and win? Yet ah! in the night when you gain to the height, With the vast pool of heaven star-spawned, Afar and agleam, like a valley of dream, Still mocks you a Land of Beyond. Thank God! there is always a Land of Beyond For us who are true to the trail; A vision to seek, a beckoning peak, A farness that never will fail ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Robert W. Service, Rhymes of a Rolling Stone

“ By your camp-fires shall they know you, ashes scattered to the wind. Peer into my heart of solace, break your bannock at my blaze; Smoking, stretched in lazy shelter, build your castles as you gaze; Or, it may be, deep in dreaming, think of dim, unhappy days. Let my warmth and glow caress you, for your trails are grim and hard; Let my arms of comfort press you, hunger-hewn and battle-scarred: O my lovers! how I bless you with your lives so madly marred! For you seek the silent spaces, and their secret lore you glean: For you win the savage races, and the brutish Wild you wean ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Robert W. Service, Rhymes of a Rolling Stone

“ Light outlives dark, joy grief, and Love's the sum: Heart of my heart! Sunshine! I come . . . I come. . . .
The Idealist
Oh you who have daring deeds to tell! And you who have felt Ambition's spell! Have you heard of the louse who longed to dwell In the golden hair of a queen? He sighed all day and he sighed all night, And no one could understand it quite, For the head of a slut is a louse's delight, But he pined for the head of a queen. So he left his kinsfolk in merry play, And off by his lonesome he stole away, From the home of his youth so bright and gay, And gloriously unclean. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Robert W. Service, Rhymes of a Rolling Stone

“ I've laughed with any man alive; But now with sobered heart I reach The Great Divide of Thirty-five. And looking back I must confess I've little cause to feel elate. I've played the mummer more or less; I fumbled fortune, flouted fate. I've vastly dreamed and little done; I've idly watched my brothers strive: Oh, I have loitered in the sun By primrose paths to Thirty-five! And those who matched me in the race, Well, some are out and trampled down; The others jog with sober pace; Yet one wins delicate renown. O midnight feast and famished dawn! O gay, hard life, with hope alive! ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Robert W. Service, Rhymes of a Rolling Stone

“ Go home, go home to your clubs, Tom Thorne! home to your evening dress! Home to your place of power and pride, and the feast that waits for you! Why do you linger all alone in the splendid emptiness, Scouring the Land of the Little Sticks on the trail of the caribou? Why did you fall off the Earth, Tom Thorne, out of our social ken? What did your deep damnation prove? What was your dark despair? Oh with the width of a world between, and years to the count of ten, If they cut out your heart to-night, Tom Thorne, HER name would be graven there! ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Robert W. Service, Rhymes of a Rolling Stone

“ There's fire-light and song — Oh, the world may be wrong! Its empires may topple and fall: My home is my care — if gladness be there, It's a mighty good world after all. O heart of pure gold! I have made you a fold, It's sheltered, sun-fondled and warm. O little ones, rest! I have fashioned a nest; Sleep on! you are safe from the storm. For there's no foe like fear, and there's no friend like cheer, And sunshine will flash at our call; So crown Love as King, and let us all sing — "It's a mighty good world after all."
The Return ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Robert W. Service, Rhymes of a Rolling Stone

“ How I thrill and I vision! Then my camp of a night; Red and gold of the fire-glow, net afloat in the stream; Scent of the pines and silence, little "pal" pipe alight, Body a-purr with pleasure, sleep untroubled of dream: Banquet of paystreak bacon! moment of joy divine, When the bannock is hot and gluey, and the teapot's nearing the boil! Never was wolf so hungry, stomach cleaving to spine. . . . Ha! there's my servant calling, says that dinner will spoil. What do I want with dinner? Can I eat any more? Can I sleep as I used to? ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Robert W. Service, Rhymes of a Rolling Stone

“ We're nothing but brute with a little veneer, And nature is best after all. There's tumult and terror abroad in the street; There's menace and doom in the air; I've got to get back to my thousand-mile beat; The trail where the cougar and silver-tip meet; The snows and the camp-fire, with wolves at my feet; Good-bye, for it's safer up there. To be forming good habits up there; To be starving on rabbits up there; In your hunger and woe, Though it's sixty below, Oh, I know that it's safer up there!
A Song of Success ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Robert W. Service, Rhymes of a Rolling Stone

“ Yet ever by the dripping kill, beside the drowsy fire, There comes the fierce heart-hunger for a mate. There comes the mad blood-clamour for a woman's clinging hand, Love-humid eyes, the velvet of a breast; And so I sought the Bonnet-plumes, and chose from out the band The girl I thought the sweetest and the best. O wistful women I have loved before my dark disgrace! O women fair and rare in my home land! Dear ladies, if I saw you now I'd turn away my face, Then crawl to kiss your foot-prints in the sand! And yet — that day the rifle jammed — a wounded moose at bay — A roar, a charge . ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Robert W. Service, Rhymes of a Rolling Stone

“ The hell of it's because I don't know which loss hurt the worse — My God or Santa Claus.
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; Lilting feet that never tire, green dingle, fagot fire; None to hurry, none to hold, heather hill and hushed fold; Nature like a picture book, laughing leaf and bright brook; Every day a jewel bright, set serenely in the night ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Robert W. Service, Rhymes of a Rolling Stone

“ Yours will be the heart-ache and the smart, Tears that scald and lonely sacrifice; There will be a moaning in your heart, There will be an anguish in your eyes. There will come a glory in your eyes, There will come a peace within your heart; Sitting 'neath the quiet evening skies, Time will dry the tear and dull the smart. You will know that you have played your part; Yours shall be the love that never dies: You, with Heaven's peace within your heart, You, with God's own glory in your eyes.
The Dreamer
The lone man gazed and gazed upon his gold, His sweat, his blood, the wage of weary days ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Robert W. Service, Rhymes of a Rolling Stone (1912)

“ And as with dread I glimpsed ahead the death that waited there,
My only thought was of the girl, the little Julie Claire;
And so, like demon mad with fear, I panted at the oar,
And foot by foot, and inch by inch, we worked the raft ashore.
The bank was staked with grinding ice, and as we scraped and crashed,
I only knew one thing to do, and through my mind it flashed:
Yet while I groped to find the rope, I heard Bill’s savage cry:
“That’s my job, lad! It’s me that jumps. I’ll snub this raft or die!” ”

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Source: Wikisource

Robert W. Service, Rhymes of a Rolling Stone (1912)

“ Soaring in silvered steeps where cloud-surfs break;
Virgin and vestal — Oh, a very Queen!
And at her feet there dreams a quiet lake.
My lake adores my mountain — well I know,
For I have watched it from its dawn-dream start,
Stilling its mirror to her splendid snow,
Framing her image in its trembling heart;
Glassing her graciousness of greening wood,
Kissing her throne, melodiously mad,
Thrilling responsive to her every mood,
Gloomed with her sadness, gay when she is glad.
My lake has dreamed and loved since time was born;
Will love and dream till time shall cease to be ”

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Source: Wikisource

Robert W. Service, Rhymes of a Rolling Stone

“ For there's never a cure When you list to the lure Of the Wan-der-lust. The Wanderlust has taught me . . . it has whispered to my heart Things all you stay-at-homes will never know. The white man and the savage are but three short days apart, Three days of cursing, crawling, doubt and woe. Then it's down to chewing muclucs, to the water you can EAT, To fish you bolt with nose held in your hand. When you get right down to cases, it's King's Grub that rules the races, And the Wanderlust will help you understand. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Robert W. Service, Rhymes of a Rolling Stone

“ How they would spit on me, these dogs of hell! Spurn me, and put on me the brand of shame. A white man's honour! what of that, I say? Shall these black curs cry "Coward" in my face? They who would perish for their gods of clay — Shall I defile my country and my race? My country! what's my country to me now? Soldier of Fortune, free and far I roam; All men are brothers in my heart, I vow; The wide and wondrous world is all my home. ”

Robert W. Service

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Quotes from Rhymes of a Rolling Stone (Robert W. Service)

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