Farewell To Verse

Robert William Service

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.

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