The Ghosts

Robert William Service 1874 – 1958



Said Lenin's ghost to Stalin's ghost:
         "Mate with me in the Tomb;
Then day by day the rancid host
         May gaze upon our doom.
A crystal casket we will share;
         Come, crusty Comrade come,
And we will bear the public stare,
         Ad nauseum."
Said Stalin's spook to Lenin's spook:
         "Long have you held your place.
The masses must be bored to look
         Upon your chemic face.
A change might be a good idear,
         And though I pity you,
There is within the Tomb, I fear,
         No room for two."

Said Lenin's wraith to Stalin's wraith:
         "You're welcome to my job;
Let millions of our mighty faith
         Gaze on your noble nob.
So when to goodly earth I've gone,
         (And I'll be glad to go),
Your carrion can carry on
         Our waxwork show."

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 24, 2023

42 sec read
149

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABABCXCBXDXDCEXE FGFGXHXH
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 784
Words 137
Stanzas 2
Stanza Lengths 16, 8

Robert William Service

Robert William Service was a poet and writer sometimes referred to as the Bard of the Yukon He is best-known for his writings on the Canadian North including the poems The Shooting of Dan McGrew The Law of the Yukon and The Cremation of Sam McGee His writing was so expressive that his readers took him for a hard-bitten old Klondike prospector not the later-arriving bank clerk he actually was Robert William Service was born 16 January 1874 in Preston England but also lived in Scotland before emigrating to Canada in 1894 Service went to the Yukon Territory in 1904 as a bank clerk and became famous for his poems about this region which are mostly in his first two books of poetry He wrote quite a bit of prose as well and worked as a reporter for some time but those writings are not nearly as well known as his poems He travelled around the world quite a bit and narrowly escaped from France at the beginning of the Second World War during which time he lived in Hollywood California He died 11 September 1958 in France Incidentally he played himself in a movie called The Spoilers starring John Wayne and Marlene Dietrich more…

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