Robert Service: British-Canadian known as “the Bard of the Yukon”

• The Passing of the Year
• My glass is filled, my pipe is lit,
•      My den is all a cosy glow;
• And snug before the fire I sit,
•      And wait to feel the old year go.
• I dedicate to solemn thought
•      Amid my too-unthinking days,
• This sober moment, sadly fraught
•      With much of blame, with little praise.

• Old Year! upon the Stage of Time
•      You stand to bow your last adieu;
• A moment, and the prompter’s chime
•      Will ring the curtain down on you.
• Your mien is sad, your step is slow;
•      You falter as a Sage in pain;
• Yet turn, Old Year, before you go,
•      And face your audience again.

• That sphinx-like face, remote, austere,
•      Let us all read, whate›er the cost:
• O Maiden! why that bitter tear?
•      Is it for dear one you have lost?
• Is it for fond illusion gone?
•      For trusted lover proved untrue?
• O sweet girl-face, so sad, so wan
•      What hath the Old Year meant to you?

• And you, O neighbour on my right
•      So sleek, so prosperously clad!
• What see you in that aged wight
•      That makes your smile so gay and glad?
• What opportunity unmissed?
•      What golden gain, what pride of place?
• What splendid hope? O Optimist!
•      What read you in that withered face?

• And You, deep shrinking in the gloom,
•      What find you in that filmy gaze?
• What menace of a tragic doom?
•      What dark, condemning yesterdays?
• What urge to crime, what evil done?
•      What cold, confronting shape of fear?
• O haggard, haunted, hidden One
•      What see you in the dying year?

• And so from face to face I flit,
•      The countless eyes that stare and stare;
• Some are with approbation lit,
•      And some are shadowed with despair.
• Some show a smile and some a frown;
•      Some joy and hope, some pain and woe:
• Enough! Oh, ring the curtain down!
•      Old weary year! it›s time to go.

• My pipe is out, my glass is dry;
•      My fire is almost ashes too;
• But once again, before you go,
•      And I prepare to meet the New:
• Old Year! a parting word that’s true,
•      For we›ve been comrades, you and I —
• I thank God for each day of you;
•      There! bless you now! Old Year, good-bye!

Robert Service (1874-1958) was a British-Canadian Poet known as “the Bard of the Yukon,” named so for his many poems set in the northern wasteland of Canada, including his most famous poem, “The Cremation of Sam McGee.” Born in Lancashire, England, he worked as a bank clerk, and often traveled to the United States and Canada. When his bank sent him to the Yukon, he was caught up in the Klondike Gold Rush and struck literary gold with “The Cremation” and other poems which became immediate successes. Service’s critics often criticized his poems as doggerel; but the financial returns on what he self-effacingly called “verse, not poetry” allowed him to escape poverty and live comfortably for the rest of his life.