Robert William 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.

Robert William Service

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/sympathy-7/