Poem by Robert William Service

Prelude (In youth I gnawed life's bitter rind)

In youth I gnawed life's bitter rind
And shared the rugged lot
Of fellows rude and unrefined,
Frustrated and forgot;
And now alas! it is too late
My sorry ways to mend,
So sadly I accept my fate,
A Roughneck to the end.

Profanity is in my voice
And slag is in my rhyme,
For I have mucked with men who curse
And grovel in the grime;
My fingers were not formed, I fear,
To frame a pretty pen,
So please forgive me if I veer
From Virtue now and then.

For I would be the living voice,
Though raucous is its tone,
Of men who rarely may rejoice,
Yet barely ever moan:
The rovers of the raw-ribbed lands,
The lads of lowly worth,
The scallywags with scaley hands
Who weld the ends of earth.

1. “Fighting Mac”
2. The March of the Dead
3. The Cremation of Sam Mcgee
4. Music in the Bush
5. The Rhyme of the Remittance Man

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