A ROLLING STONE

A  ROLLING  STONE

There's sunshine in the heart of me,

My blood sings in the breeze;

The mountains are a part of me,

I'm fellow to the trees.

My golden youth I'm squandering,

Sun-libertine am I;

A-wandering, a-wandering,

Until the day I die.

I was once, I declare, a Stone-Age man,

And I roomed in the cool of a cave;

I have known, I will swear, in a new life-span,

The fret and the sweat of a slave:

For far over all that folks hold worth,

There lives and there leaps in me

A love of the lowly things of earth,

And a passion to be free.

To pitch my tent with no prosy plan,

To range and to change at will;

To mock at the mastership of man,

To seek Adventure's thrill.

Carefree to be, as a bird that sings;

To go my own sweet way;

To reck not at all what may befall,

But to live and to love each day.

To make my body a temple pure

Wherein I dwell serene;

To care for the things that shall endure,

The simple, sweet and clean.

To oust out envy and hate and rage,

To breathe with no alarm;

For Nature shall be my anchorage,

And none shall do me harm.

To shun all lures that debauch the soul,

The orgied rites of the rich;

To eat my crust as a rover must

With the rough-neck down in the ditch.

To trudge by his side whate'er betide;

To share his fire at night;

To call him friend to the long trail-end,

And to read his heart aright.

To scorn all strife, and to view all life

With the curious eyes of a child;

From the plangent sea to the prairie,

From the slum to the heart of the Wild.

From the red-rimmed star to the speck of sand,

From the vast to the greatly small;

For I know that the whole for good is planned,

And I want to see it all.

To see it all, the wide world-way,

From the fig-leaf belt to the Pole;

With never a one to say me nay,

And none to cramp my soul.

In belly-pinch I will pay the price,

But God! let me be free;

For once I know in the long ago,

They made a slave of me.

In a flannel shirt from earth's clean dirt,

Here, pal, is my calloused hand!

Oh, I love each day as a rover may,

Nor seek to understand.

To enjoy is good enough for me;

The gipsy of God am I;

Then here's a hail to each flaring dawn!

And here's a cheer to the night that's gone!

And may I go a-roaming on

Until the day I die!

Then every star shall sing to me

Its song of liberty;

And every morn shall bring to me

Its mandate to be free.

In every throbbing vein of me

I'll feel the vast Earth-call;

O body, heart and brain of me

Praise Him who made it all!

                                      Robert William Service

THE MEN THAT DON'T FIT IN

THE MEN THAT DON’T FIT IN

There's a race of men that don't fit in,

A race that can't stay still;

So they break the hearts of kith and kin,

And they roam the world at will.

They range the field and they rove the flood,

And they climb the mountain's crest;

Theirs is the curse of the gypsy blood,

And they don't know how to rest.

If they just went straight they might go far;

They are strong and brave and true;

But they're always tired of the things that are,

And they want the strange and new.

They say: "Could I find my proper groove,

What a deep mark I would make!"

So they chop and change, and each fresh move

Is only a fresh mistake.

And each forgets, as he strips and runs

With a brilliant, fitful pace,

It's the steady, quiet, plodding ones

Who win in the lifelong race.

And each forgets that his youth has fled,

Forgets that his prime is past,

Till he stands one day, with a hope that's dead,

In the glare of the truth at last.

He has failed, he has failed; he has missed his chance;

He has just done things by half.

Life's been a jolly good joke on him,

And now is the time to laugh.

Ha, ha! He is one of the Legion Lost;

He was never meant to win;

He's a rolling stone, and it's bred in the bone;

He's a man who won't fit in.

                                       Robert William Service

THE RELEASE

THE RELEASE

To-day within a grog-shop near

I saw a newly captured linnet,

Who beat against his cage in fear,

And fell exhausted every minute;

And when I asked the fellow there

If he to sell the bird were willing,

He told me with a careless air

That I could have it for a shilling.

And so I bought it, cage and all

(Although I went without my dinner),

And where some trees were fairly tall

And houses shrank and smoke was thinner,

The tiny door I open threw,

As down upon the grass I sank me:

Poor little chap! How quick he flew . . .

He didn't even wait to thank me.

Life's like a cage; we beat the bars,

We bruise our breasts, we struggle vainly;

Up to the glory of the stars

We strain with flutterings ungainly.

And then -- God opens wide the door;

Our wondrous wings are arched for flying;

We poise, we part, we sing, we soar . . .

Light, freedom, love. . . . Fools call it -- Dying.

                                     Robert William Service

MY GUARDIAN ANGEL

MY GUARDIAN ANGEL

When looking back I dimly see

The trails my feet have trod,

Some hand divine, it seems to me,

Has pulled the strings with God;

Some angel form has lifeward leaned

When hope for me was past;

Some love sublime has intervened

To save me at the last.

For look you! I was born a fool,

Damnation was my fate;

My lot to drivel and to drool,

Egregious and frutrate.

But in the deep of my despair,

When dark my doom was writ,

Some saving hand was always there

to pull me from the Pit.

A Guardian Angel - how absurd!

I scoff at Power Divine.

And yet . . . a someone spoke the word

That willed me from the swine.

And yet, despite my scorn of prayer,

My lack of love or friend,

I know a Presence will be there,

To save me at the end.

                                     Robert William Service 1874 - 1958

FOOTSTEPS OF ANGELS

Footsteps of Angels

When the hours of Day are numbered,

And the voices of the Night

Wake the better soul, that slumbered,

To a holy, calm delight;

Ere the evening lamps are lighted,

And, like phantoms grim and tall,

Shadows from the fitful firelight

Dance upon the parlor wall;

Then the forms of the departed

Enter at the open door;

The beloved, the true-hearted,

Come to visit me once more;

He, the young and strong, who cherished

Noble longings for the strife,

By the roadside fell and perished,

Weary with the march of life!

They, the holy ones and weakly,

Who the cross of suffering bore,

Folded their pale hands so meekly,

Spake with us on earth no more!

And with them the Being Beauteous,

Who unto my youth was given,

More than all things else to love me,

And is now a saint in heaven.

With a slow and noiseless footstep

Comes that messenger divine,

Takes the vacant chair beside me,

Lays her gentle hand in mine.

And she sits and gazes at me

With those deep and tender eyes,

Like the stars, so still and saint-like,

Looking downward from the skies.

Uttered not, yet comprehended,

Is the spirit's voiceless prayer,

Soft rebukes, in blessings ended,

Breathing from her lips of air.

Oh, though oft depressed and lonely,

All my fears are laid aside,

If I but remember only

Such as these have lived and died!

                                    Henry Wadsworth Longfellow