My Book

by Robert Service ~ on witnessing a would-be author who appears homeless, occasionally scribbling on bits of paper.

Before I drink myself to death,

God, let me finish up my Book!

At night, I fear, I fight for breath,

And wake up whiter than a spook;

And crawl off to a bistro near,

And drink until my brain is clear.

Rare Absinthe!  Oh, it gives me strength

To write and write; and so I spend

Day after day, until at length

With joy and pain I'll write The End:

Then let this carcase rot; I give

The world my Book ~ my Book will live.

For every line is tense with truth,

There's hope and joy on every page;

A cheer, a clarion call to Youth,

A hymn, a comforter to Age:

All's there that I was meant to be,

My part divine, the God in me.

It's of my life the golden sum;

Ah!  who that reads this Book of mine,

In stormy centuries to come,

Will dream I rooted with the swine?

Behold!  I give mankind my best:

What does it matter, all the rest?

It's this that makes sublime my day;

It's this that makes me struggle on.

Oh, let them mock my mortal clay,

My spirit's deathless as the dawn;

Oh, let them shudder as they look...

I'll be immortal in my Book.

And so beside the sullen Seine

I fight with dogs for filthy food,

Yet know that from my sin and pain

Will soar serene a Something Good;

Exultantly from shame and wrong

A Right, a Glory and a Song.

~ Complete Poems of Robert Service.  Dodd, Mead &Company Inc., 1907

RBS (1877 - 1858)