Written by
Robert William Service |
I keep collecting books I know
I'll never, never read;
My wife and daughter tell me so,
And yet I never head.
"Please make me," says some wistful tome,
"A wee bit of yourself.
"
And so I take my treasure home,
And tuck it in a shelf.
And now my very shelves complain;
They jam and over-spill.
They say: "Why don't you ease our strain?"
"some day," I say, "I will.
"
So book by book they plead and sigh;
I pick and dip and scan;
Then put them back, distrest that I
Am such a busy man.
Now, there's my Boswell and my Sterne,
my Gibbon and Defoe;
To savour Swift I'll never learn,
Montaigne I may not know.
On Bacon I will never sup,
For Shakespeare I've no time;
Because I'm busy making up
These jingly bits of rhyme.
Chekov is caviare to me,
While Stendhal makes me snore;
Poor Proust is not my cup of tea,
And Balzac is a bore.
I have their books, I love their names,
And yet alas! they head,
With Lawrence, Joyce and Henry James,
My Roster of Unread.
I think it would be very well
If I commit a crime,
And get put in a prison cell
And not allowed to rhyme;
Yet given all these worthy books
According to my need,
I now caress with loving looks,
But never, never read.
|
Written by
Robert William Service |
Happiness, a-roving round
For a sweet abiding place,
In a stately palace found
Symmetry and gilded grace;
Courtliness and table cheer,
All that chimes with evening dress .
.
.
"I could never stick it here,"
Swift decided Happiness.
Happiness a-seeking still,
In a mansion of the town,
Comfort-crammed to overspill,
Sought in vain to settle down.
Every nook strained to express
Opulent prosperity .
.
.
But "Alas!" said Happiness,
"This is not my cup of tea.
"
In a cottage by the sea,
Most monastically bare,
Happiness peered wistfully,
And he spied me waiting there.
"Stay," said I: "No need to roam;
Though no riches I possess,
Squat and make yourself at home.
.
.
.
"
"Say, that's swell!" said Happiness.
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