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.