Robert William Service

Here you will find the Poem Farewell To Verse of poet Robert William Service

Farewell To Verse

In youth when oft my muse was dumb,
 My fancy nighly dead,
To make my inspiration come
 I stood upon my head;
And thus I let the blood down flow
 Into my cerebellum,
And published every Spring or so
 Slim tomes in vellum.

Alas! I am rheumatic now,
 Grey is my crown;
I can no more with brooding brow
 Stand upside-down.
I fear I might in such a pose
 Burst brain blood-vessel;
And that would be a woeful close
 To my rhyme wrestle.

If to write verse I must reverse
 I fear I'm stymied;
In ink of prose I must immerse
 A pen de-rhymèd.
No more to spank the lyric lyre
 Like Keats or Browning,
May I inspire the Sacred Fire
 My Upside-downing.