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Read more poems by Robert Service: Robert Service Poems at Poetry X.

Is it because I'm bent and grey,
      Though wearing rather well,
That I can slickly get away
      With all the yarns I tell?
Is it because my bleary eye
      No longer beams with youth
That I can plant a whopping lie,
      And flout the truth?
      
I wonder why folks hark to me
      Where once they would have laughed?
They treat my yarns respectfully,
      No matter how they're daft.
They count the notches on my gun
      And stroke its polished butt,
Wanting to know why every one
      Of them was cut.

Indeed were I to stick to fact
      Their interest would flag;
Dramatically I must act
      The rôle of scalliwag;
A battle veteran to be,
      A frozen argonaut,
A castaway in coral sea,--
      Such a tommyrot!

And so with unction I conceive
      Invention wild and new,
Until I'm coming to believe
      My taradiddles true . . .
Is it because I'm old and sage, 
      I draw a bow that's risky?
Or can it be--that lies with age
      Improve like whisky?

Added: 25 Mar 2002 | Last Read: 7 Sep 2008 11:48 PM | Viewed: 2257 times

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