Love Poems - Love Poetry - Love Poets

The Song of the Wage-slave
Robert W. Service

1 When the long, long day is over, and the Big Boss gives me my pay,
2 I hope that it won't be hell-fire, as some of the parsons say.
3 And I hope that it won't be heaven, with some of the parsons I've met --
4 All I want is just quiet, just to rest and forget.
5 Look at my face, toil-furrowed; look at my calloused hands;
6 Master, I've done Thy bidding, wrought in Thy many lands --
7 Wrought for the little masters, big-bellied they be, and rich;
8 I've done their desire for a daily hire, and I die like a dog in a ditch.
9 I have used the strength Thou hast given, Thou knowest I did not shirk;
10 Threescore years of labor -- Thine be the long day's work.
11 And now, Big Master, I'm broken and bent and twisted and scarred,
12 But I've held my job, and Thou knowest, and Thou wilt not judge me hard.
13 Thou knowest my sins are many, and often I've played the fool --
14 Whiskey and cards and women, they made me the devil's tool.
15 I was just like a child with money; I flung it away with a curse,
16 Feasting a fawning parasite, or glutting a harlot's purse;
17 Then back to the woods repentant, back to the mill or the mine,
18 I, the worker of workers, everything in my line.
19 Everything hard but headwork (I'd no more brains than a kid),
20 A brute with brute strength to labor, doing as I was bid;
21 Living in camps with men-folk, a lonely and loveless life;
22 Never knew kiss of sweetheart, never caress of wife.
23 A brute with brute strength to labor, and they were so far above --
24 Yet I'd gladly have gone to the gallows for one little look of Love.
25 I, with the strength of two men, savage and shy and wild --
26 Yet how I'd ha' treasured a woman, and the sweet, warm kiss of a child!
27 Well, 'tis Thy world, and Thou knowest. I blaspheme and my ways be rude;
28 But I've lived my life as I found it, and I've done my best to be good;
29 I, the primitive toiler, half naked and grimed to the eyes,
30 Sweating it deep in their ditches, swining it stark in their styes;
31 Hurling down forests before me, spanning tumultuous streams;
32 Down in the ditch building o'er me palaces fairer than dreams;
33 Boring the rock to the ore-bed, driving the road through the fen,
34 Resolute, dumb, uncomplaining, a man in a world of men.
35 Master, I've filled my contract, wrought in Thy many lands;
36 Not by my sins wilt Thou judge me, but by the work of my hands.
37 Master, I've done Thy bidding, and the light is low in the west,
38 And the long, long shift is over. . .Master, I've earned it -- Rest.

 

LOVE POEMS WANTED : Click here if you would like to submit your love poems for possible inclusion on this site. We update our web site once per month. We will not post poems that are sexuallyexplicit.

Here Are Our Top Love Poems...

Love Poems 1 I Would Live in Your Love by Sara Teasdale (1884-1933)

Love Poems 2 Sonnet From the Portuguese V by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-61)

Love Poems 3 The Bungler by Amy Lowell (1874-1925)

Love Poems 4 Blue and White by Mary Elizabeth Coleridge (1861-1907)

Love Poems 5 Desideria by William Wordsworth (1770-1850)

Love Poems 6 The Taxi by Amy Lowell (1874-1925)

Love Poems 7 Daffodils by William Wordsworth (1770-1850)

Love Poems 8 Song by Sir William Watson (1858-1935)

Love Poems 9 To a Butterfly by William Wordsworth (1770-1850)

Love Poems 10 Sonnet From the Portuguese V by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-61)

Love Poems 11 She Tells Her Love by Robert Ranke Graves

Love Poems 12 It's all I have to bring to-day by Emily  Dickinson

Love Poems 13 I Never Lost As Much by Emily  Dickinson

Love Poems 14 Heart, We Will Forget Him by Emily  Dickinson

Love Poems 15 O Mistress Mine by William  Shakespeare

Love Poems 16 The Rose in the Deeps of his Heart by William Butler Yeats

Love Poems 17 Love by Robert  Browning

Love Poems 18 My Pretty Rose Tree by William  Blake

Love Poems 19 I Should Not Dare by Emily  Dickinson

Love Poems 20 One Day I Wrote Her Name by Edmund  Spenser

Love Poems 21 Tell me not, Sweet, by Richard  Lovelace

Love Poems 22 The Dream by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Love Poems 23 The Dream by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Love Poems 24 Hope is a Thing With Feathers by Emily  Dickinson

Love Poems 25 We Are Seven by William  Wordsworth

Love Poems 26 Mag by Carl  Sandburg

Love Poems 27 Ebb by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Love Poems 28 I Sing by Emily  Dickinson

Love Poems 29 For Each Ecstatic Instant by Emily  Dickinson

Love Poems 30 Love Not Me by John  Wilbye

Love Poems 31 Mild Is The Parting Year by Walter Savage Landor

_______________________________________________________________________________________

No Part Of This Website Design May Be Copied In Any Manner.
All Rights Reserved (C) 2003 Quality Publishing Group.

Favorite Love Poems
Site Map
Classic Love Poems