Home ⇒ 📌Robert William Service ⇒ The Land God Forgot
The Land God Forgot
The lonely sunsets flare forlorn
Down valleys dreadly desolate;
The lordly mountains soar in scorn
As still as death, as stern as fate.
The lonely sunsets flame and die;
The giant valleys gulp the night;
The monster mountains scrape the sky,
Where eager stars are diamond-bright.
So gaunt against the gibbous moon,
Piercing the silence velvet-piled,
A lone wolf howls his ancient rune
The fell arch-spirit of the Wild.
O outcast land! O leper land!
Let the lone wolf-cry all express
The hate insensate of thy hand,
Thy heart’s abysmal loneliness.
(2 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
Related poetry:
- How the Land was Won The future was dark and the past was dead As they gazed on the sea once more – But a nation was born when the immigrants said “Good-bye!” as they stepped ashore! In their loneliness they were parted thus Because of the work to do, A wild wide land to be won for us By […]...
- The Spell Of The Yukon I wanted the gold, and I sought it, I scrabbled and mucked like a slave. Was it famine or scurvy I fought it; I hurled my youth into a grave. I wanted the gold, and I got it Came out with a fortune last fall, Yet somehow life’s not what I thought it, And somehow […]...
- Dorcas Gustine I was not beloved of the villagers, But all because I spoke my mind, And met those who transgressed against me With plain remonstrance, hiding nor nurturing Nor secret griefs nor grudges. That act of the Spartan boy is greatly praised, Who hid the wolf under his cloak, Letting it devour him, uncomplainingly. It is […]...
- Land, Ho! I know ’tis but a loom of land, Yet is it land, and so I will rejoice, I know I cannot hear His voice Upon the shore, nor see Him stand; Yet is it land, ho! land. The land! the land! the lovely land! ‘Far off,’ dost say? Far off-ah, blessиd home! Farewell! farewell! thou […]...
- The Land Of Dreams Awake, awake my little Boy! Thou wast thy Mother’s only joy: Why dost thou weep in thy gentle sleep? Awake! thy Father does thee keep. “O, what land is the Land of Dreams? What are its mountains, and what are its streams? O Father, I saw my Mother there, Among the lillies by waters fair. […]...
- The Never-Never Country By homestead, hut, and shearing-shed, By railroad, coach, and track By lonely graves of our brave dead, Up-Country and Out-Back: To where ‘neath glorious the clustered stars The dreamy plains expand My home lies wide a thousand miles In the Never-Never Land. It lies beyond the farming belt, Wide wastes of scrub and plain, A […]...
- The Land Of Beyond Have ever you heard of the Land of Beyond, That dreams at the gates of the day? Alluring it lies at the skirts of the skies, And ever so far away; Alluring it calls: O ye the yoke galls, And ye of the trail overfond, With saddle and pack, by paddle and track, Let’s go […]...
- My Land and I They have eaten their fill at your tables spread, Like friends since the land was won; And they rise with a cry of “Australia’s dead!” With the wheeze of “Australia’s done!” Oh, the theme is stale, but they tell the tale (How the weak old tale will keep!) Like the crows that croak on a […]...
- Adieu, Adieu! My Native Land Adieu, adieu! my native shore Fades o’ver the waters blue; The night-winds sigh, the breakers roar, And shrieks the wild sea-mew. Yon sun that sets upon the sea We follow in his flight; Farewell awhile to him and thee, My native Land-Good Night! A few short hours, and he will rise To give the morrow […]...
- Gods In The Gutter I dreamed I saw three demi-gods who in a cafe sat, And one was small and crapulous, and one was large and fat; And one was eaten up with vice and verminous at that. The first he spoke of secret sins, and gems and perfumes rare; And velvet cats and courtesans voluptuously fair: “Who is […]...
- Premonition ‘Twas a year ago and the moon was bright (Oh, I remember so well, so well); I walked with my love in a sea of light, And the voice of my sweet was a silver bell. And sudden the moon grew strangely dull, And sudden my love had taken wing; I looked on the face […]...
- Where Lies The Land To Which The Ship Would Go Where lies the land to which the ship would go? Far, far ahead, is all her seamen know. And where the land she travels from? Away, Far, far behind, is all that they can say. On sunny noons upon the deck’s smooth face, Linked arm in arm, how pleasant here to pace! Or, o’er the […]...
- La Fuite De La Lune To outer senses there is peace, A dreamy peace on either hand Deep silence in the shadowy land, Deep silence where the shadows cease. Save for a cry that echoes shrill From some lone bird disconsolate; A corncrake calling to its mate; The answer from the misty hill. And suddenly the moon withdraws Her sickle […]...
- The Heart Of The Sourdough There where the mighty mountains bare their fangs unto the moon, There where the sullen sun-dogs glare in the snow-bright, bitter noon, And the glacier-glutted streams sweep down at the clarion call of June. There where the livid tundras keep their tryst with the tranquil snows; There where the silences are spawned, and the light […]...
- The Land of Nod From breakfast on through all the day At home among my friends I stay, But every night I go abroad Afar into the land of Nod. All by myself I have to go, With none to tell me what to do All alone beside the streams And up the mountain-sides of dreams. The strangest things […]...
- The True Encounter “Wolf!” cried my cunning heart At every sheep it spied, And roused the countryside. “Wolf! Wolf!”-and up would start Good neighbours, bringing spade And pitchfork to my aid. At length my cry was known: Therein lay my release. I met the wolf alone And was devoured in peace....
- Tutto è Sciolto A birdless heaven, seadusk, one lone star Piercing the west, As thou, fond heart, love’s time, so faint, so far, Rememberest. The clear young eyes’ soft look, the candid brow, The fragrant hair, Falling as through the silence falleth now Dusk of the air. Why then, remembering those shy Sweet lures, repine When the dear […]...
- Snow SNOW took us away from the smoke valleys into white mountains, we saw velvet blue cows eating a vermillion grass and they gave us a pink milk. Snow changes our bones into fog streamers caught by the wind and spelled into many dances. Six bits for a sniff of snow in the old days bought […]...
- Land Mine A grey gull hovered overhead, Then wisely flew away. ‘In half a jiffy you’ll be dead,’ I thought I heard it say; As there upon the railway line, Checking an urge to cough, I laboured to de-fuse the mine That had not yet gone off. I tapped around the time-clock rim, Then something worried me. […]...
- The Height of Land Here is the height of land: The watershed on either hand Goes down to Hudson Bay Or Lake Superior; The stars are up, and far away The wind sounds in the wood, wearier Than the long Ojibwa cadence In which Potàn the Wise Declares the ills of life And Chees-que-ne-ne makes a mournful sound Of […]...
- Fairy-Land Dim vales – and shadowy floods- And cloudy-looking woods, Whose forms we can’t discover For the tears that drip all over! Huge moons there wax and wane- Again – again – again- Every moment of the night- Forever changing places- And they put out the star-light With the breath from their pale faces. About twelve […]...
- Australian Scenery The Mountains A land of sombre, silent hills, where mountain cattle go By twisted tracks, on sidelings deep, where giant gum trees grow And the wind replies, in the river oaks, to the song of the stream below. A land where the hills keep watch and ward, silent and wide awake As those who sit […]...
- That she forgot me was the least That she forgot me was the least I felt it second pain That I was worthy to forget Was most I thought upon. Faithful was all that I could boast But Constancy became To her, by her innominate, A something like a shame....
- He forgot and I remembered He forgot and I remembered ‘Twas an everyday affair Long ago as Christ and Peter “Warmed them” at the “Temple fire.” “Thou wert with him” quoth “the Damsel”? “No” said Peter, ’twasn’t me Jesus merely “looked” at Peter Could I do aught else to Thee?...
- Sweet You forgot but I remembered Sweet You forgot but I remembered Every time for Two So that the Sum be never hindered Through Decay of You Say if I erred? Accuse my Farthings Blame the little Hand Happy it be for You a Beggar’s Seeking More to spend Just to be Rich to waste my Guineas On so Best a […]...
- To be forgot by thee To be forgot by thee Surpasses Memory Of other minds The Heart cannot forget Unless it contemplate What it declines I was regarded then Raised from oblivion A single time To be remembered what Worthy to be forgot Is my renown...
- All forgot for recollecting All forgot for recollecting Just a paltry One All forsook, for just a Stranger’s New Accompanying Grace of Wealth, and Grace of Station Less accounted than An unknown Esteem possessing Estimate Who can Home effaced Her faces dwindled Nature altered small Sun if shone or Storm if shattered Overlooked I all Dropped my fate a […]...
- The Nympholept There was a boy not above childish fears With steps that faltered now and straining ears, Timid, irresolute, yet dauntless still, Who one bright dawn, when each remotest hill Stood sharp and clear in Heaven’s unclouded blue And all Earth shimmered with fresh-beaded dew, Risen in the first beams of the gladdening sun, Walked up […]...
- The Call Of The Wild Have you gazed on naked grandeur where there’s nothing else to gaze on, Set pieces and drop-curtain scenes galore, Big mountains heaved to heaven, which the blinding sunsets blazon, Black canyons where the rapids rip and roar? Have you swept the visioned valley with the green stream streaking through it, Searched the Vastness for a […]...
- Buckwheat 1THERE was a late autumn cricket, And two smoldering mountain sunsets Under the valley roads of her eyes. There was a late autumn cricket, A hangover of summer song, Scraping a tune Of the late night clocks of summer, In the late winter night fireglow, This in a circle of black velvet at her neck. […]...
- The Little Land When at home alone I sit And am very tired of it, I have just to shut my eyes To go sailing through the skies To go sailing far away To the pleasant Land of Play; To the fairy land afar Where the Little People are; Where the clover-tops are trees, And the rain-pools are […]...
- Dunes WHAT do we see here in the sand dunes of the white Moon alone with our thoughts, Bill, Alone with our dreams, Bill, soft as the women tying Scarves around their heads dancing, Alone with a picture and a picture coming one after the Other of all the dead, The dead more than all these […]...
- The Atavist What are you doing here, Tom Thorne, on the white top-knot o’ the world, Where the wind has the cut of a naked knife and the stars are rapier keen? Hugging a smudgy willow fire, deep in a lynx robe curled, You that’s a lord’s own son, Tom Thorne what does your madness mean? Go […]...
- This is the land the Sunset washes This is the land the Sunset washes These are the Banks of the Yellow Sea Where it rose or whither it rushes These are the Western Mystery! Night after Night Her purple traffic Strews the landing with Opal Bales Merchantmen poise upon Horizons Dip and vanish like Orioles!...
- Behold, from the land of the farther suns Behold, from the land of the farther suns I returned. And I was in a reptile-swarming place, Peopled, otherwise, with grimaces, Shrouded above in black impenetrableness. I shrank, loathing, Sick with it. And I said to him, “What is this?” He made answer slowly, “Spirit, this is a world; This was your home.”...
- The Land of Counterpane When I was sick and lay a-bed, I had two pillows at my head, And all my toys beside me lay, To keep me happy all the day. And sometimes for an hour or so I watched my leaden soldiers go, With different uniforms and drills, Among the bed-clothes, through the hills; And sometimes sent […]...
- The Naked Land A beast stands at my eye. I cook my senses in a dark fire. The old wombs rot and the new mother Approaches with the footsteps of a world. Who are the people of this unscaled heaven? What beckons? Whose blood hallows this grim land? What slithers along the watershed of my human sleep? The […]...
- The Tramps Can you recall, dear comrade, when we tramped God’s land together, And we sang the old, old Earth-song, for our youth was very sweet; When we drank and fought and lusted, as we mocked at tie and tether, Along the road to Anywhere, the wide world at our feet Along the road to Anywhere, when […]...
- The Wood-Cutter The sky is like an envelope, One of those blue official things; And, sealing it, to mock our hope, The moon, a silver wafer, clings. What shall we find when death gives leave To read our sentence or reprieve? I’m holding it down on God’s scrap-pile, up on the fag-end of earth; O’er me a […]...
- There was a land where lived no violets There was a land where lived no violets. A traveller at once demanded : “Why?” The people told him: “Once the violets of this place spoke thus: ‘Until some woman freely gives her lover To another woman We will fight in bloody scuffle.'” Sadly the people added: “There are no violets here.”...
Horatio »