Page:Poems Elliott.djvu/67

 OBERT W. SERVICE, the only one among our three hero-poets who has not yet been called upon to give his life for his country, was born in England, in 1876. He was educated in Glasgow, but came to Canada in 1905 and held a position in the Canadian Bank of Commerce. He was, at one time, stationed in the Yukon Territory.

His first collection of verse, called the "Songs of a Sour-dough," depicting the life of the miners, and the hardened veterans of the North, in its wild freedom from all conventions, and the wonderful spell of that Northern country, was rejected by every publisher in the United States and Canada, until it came into the hands of the Briggs Publishing Company of Toronto, but has since made a fortune for its Author. It is now known under the more prepossessing title of "The Spell of the Yukon," and was followed, two years later, by the "Ballads of a Cheechako." His next book of poems was entitled "Rhymes of a Rolling Stone." He is the author of two novels also, the last, called "The Pretender" being largely autobiographical.

He has been called the "Canadian Kipling" and the "Kipling of the Arctic World," and, the likeness is most appropriate. Especially is it apparent in his two earliest volumes of verse. His virility, forcefulness and originality, his elemental intensity of feeling, his lack of hesitation at using the right word in the right place, no matter how rough or raw it may be, are the especial characterictics he has in common with Kipling.

In his "Rhymes of a Rolling Stone," this style is somewhat softened, and is then strongly reminiscent of our