Robert W. Service

Sympathy

My Muse is simple,—yet it’s nice
To think you don’t need to think twice
On words I write.
I reckon I’ve a common touch
And if you say I cuss too much
I answer: ‘Quite!’
 
I envy not the poet’s lot;
He has something I haven’t got,
Alas, I know.
But I have something maybe he
Would envy just a mite in me,—
I’m rather low.
 
For I am cast of common clay,
And from a ditch I fought my way,
And that is why
The while the poet scans the skies,
My gaze is grimly gutterwise,
Earthy am I.
 
And yet I have a gift, perhaps
Denied to proud poetic chaps
Who scoff at me;
I know the hearts of humble folk;
I too have bowed beneath the yoke:
So let my verse for them evoke
Your sympathy.

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