{
 "id": "robert-w-service/music-in-the-bush",
 "title": "Music in the Bush",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Robert W. Service",
 "poet_slug": "robert-w-service",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Songs of a Sourdough",
 "book_slug": "songs-of-a-sourdough",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 20,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1907,
  "venue": "Songs of a Sourdough (1907)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/songsofsourdoug00serv"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/robert-w-service_songs-of-a-sourdough",
  "file": "poetry.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/25546",
   "https://archive.org/details/songsofsourdoug00serv"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-20"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 52,
  "n_stanzas": 13,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 51,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "O’er the dark pines she sees the silver moon,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And in the west, all tremulous, a star;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And soothing sweet she hears the mellow tune",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of cowbells jangled in the fields afar.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Quite listless, for her daily stent is done,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She stands, sad exile, at her rose-wreathed door,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And sends her love eternal with the sun",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That goes to gild the land she’ll see no more.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The grave, gaunt pines imprison her sad gaze,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All still the sky and darkling drearily;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "She feels the chilly breath of dear, dead days",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Come sifting through the alders eerily.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Oh, how the roses riot in their bloom!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The curtains stir as with an ancient pain;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Her old piano gleams from out the gloom,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And waits and waits her tender touch in vain.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "But now her hands like moonlight brush the keys",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With velvet grace, melodious delight;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And now a sad refrain from overseas",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Goes sobbing on the bosom of the night.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And now she sings. (O singer in the gloom,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Voicing a sorrow we can ne’er express,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Here in the Farness where we few have room",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Unshamed to show our love and tenderness,",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Our hearts will echo, till they beat no more,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That song of sadness and of motherland;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And stretched in deathless love to England’s shore,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Some day she’ll hearken and she’ll understand.)",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "A prima-donna in the shining past,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But now a mother growing old and grey,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "She thinks of how she held a people fast",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In thrall, and gleaned the triumphs of a day.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "She sees a sea of faces like a dream;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She sees herself a queen of song once more;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "She sees lips part in rapture, eyes agleam;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She sings as never once she sang before.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "She sings a wild, sweet song that throbs with pain,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The added pain of life that transcends art,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "A song of home, a deep, celestial strain,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The glorious swan-song of a dying heart.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "A lame tramp comes along the railway track,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A grizzled dog whose day is nearly done:",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "He passes, pauses, then comes slowly back",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And listens there⁠—an audience of one.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "She sings⁠—her golden voice is passion-fraught",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As when she charmed a thousand eager ears;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "He listens trembling, and she knows it not,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And down his hollow cheeks roll bitter tears.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "She ceases and is still, as if to pray;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "There is no sound, the stars are all alight⁠—",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Only a wretch who stumbles on his way,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Only a vagrant sobbing in the night.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}