It’s slim and trim and bound in blue;
Its leaves are crisp and edged with gold;
Its words are simple, stalwart too;
Its thoughts are tender, wise and bold.
Its pages scintillate with wit;
Its pathos clutches at my throat:
Oh, how I love each line of it!
That Little Book I Never Wrote.

In dreams I see it praised and prized
By all, from plowman unto peer;
It’s pencil-marked and memorized,
It’s loaned (and not returned, I fear);
It’s worn and torn and travel-tossed,
And even dusky natives quote
That classic that the world has lost,
The Little Book I Never Wrote.

Poor ghost! For homes you’ve failed to cheer,
For grieving hearts uncomforted,
Don’t haunt me now. . . . Alas! I fear
The fire of Inspiration’s dead.
A humdrum way I go to-night,
From all I hoped and dreamed remote:
Too late . . . a better man must write
That Little Book I Never Wrote.

– My Masterpiece by Robert Service

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4. Poem of the day – Belated Conscience by Robert Service To buy for school a copy-book I asked my Dad for two-pence;He gave it with a gentle look, Although he had but few pence.‘Twas then I proved myself a crook And came a moral cropper,I bought a penny copy-book And blued the other copper. I spent it on a sausage roll Gulped down with guilt [...]...
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