Posted on 02/27/2008 12:21:19 PM PST by Clive
Service is often recited here in Fairbanks, for tourists.
“AFAIK, Im the only FReeper with a R.W. Service poem on my profile page :-D”
I have one of Kipling’s on mine. Along with the explanation for my Freepname.
Years ago I saw a movie cartoon of this poem. It started out with a scene of a sign on a hilltop, Alaskan town down below, snow all over. The sign had a population number for the town, like the numbers on a cash register. Next you heard two shots, and the population number on the sign dropped by two. Hilarious.
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 Service
One of my favorites!!
As a child, my mother read me Jack London’s “To Build A Fire”.
We both agreed that, while very good, it wasn’t exactly suitable as a bedtime story.
Chorus:
“Please Mother don’t stab Father with the BREAD-KNIFE,
Remember ‘twas a gift when you were wed.
But if you must stab Father with the BREAD-KNIFE,
Please Mother use another for the BREAD.”
***
one of my funny favorites
***
http://www.mochinet.com/poets/service/index.cgi?ListTitles=Bar-Room%20Ballads&Poem=45
I always liked "The Men who Don't fit In".
http://www.mochinet.com/poets/service/index.cgi?ListTitles=Bar-Room%20Ballads&Poem=18
The Ballad of Lenin’s Tomb
Well, I don’t care a damn:
I tell you this: their Lenin is a waxen, show-case SHAM.
ping to myself for later
When I was a little kid, my grandparents took my brothers and I from Washington, DC, up to Fairbanks, AK, to visit my greatgranmother.
We saw this play.
I remember my brother, as the protagonist struggled to get the corpse in the boiler, screamed out, “Well, stuff him IN!”
They made him part of the play.
For us who live in the far north, Robert Service says it for all of us. Definitely the “bard of the far north,” he was. He had an uncanny knack to put in words what we all know by instinct. “The Men who don’t Fit in,” for instance.
I’ve been to his (and Jack London’s)place of abode in Dawson and Whitehorse, Yukon Territory.
Sister Azorius had us memorize this in 5th grade. The class recited it in unison as part of the Christmas program that year.
Maybe that’s why I turned out to be more of a beer and limerick kind of guy.
Good old Robert Service. I still have the book of his poems that my Dad gave me when I was a stripling.
In Memoriam to Robert Service:
Now that I’m over that great divide
between middle and senior age
I remember my schemes to go far and wide
upon life’s adventurous stage
I wanted to search for gold and toil
Like Service’s miner’s of old
But I never learned how to successfully ‘moil’
And so never found any gold.
I memorized this in 7th grade. Still remember most of it.
Then, a few years back, I paraphrased it thus:
The Bulldozing of Rachel Corrie
There are strange things done in the blazing sun
By tools who toil for causes.
The desert sands have their Arab bands
Who have seen less wins than losses.
The Mid-East blights have seen queer sights;
But the queerest of all, the most gory
Was that day on the tip of the Gaza Strip
I bulldozed Rachel Corrie.
Rachel Corrie came from Isle of Maury,
Where the liberal breeds and grows.
Why she left her gang out west to hang
With the rags, God only knows.
She was never told that the lands of old
Had a Hebrew tale to tell;
And she’d often say in her churlish way,
“Those Jews should burn in Hell!”
On March 16 our ragtime queen
Made herself a human shield.
It was 5 PM and the light was dim
When in her horn she squealed.
“Now stop right there while I prepare
For a sit-in, brave and burly.”
But she was not seen and our ragtime queen
Was a sandy, gritty girlie.
There are strange things done in the blazing sun
By tools who toil for causes.
The desert sands have their Arab bands
Who have seen less wins than losses.
The Mid-East blights have seen queer sights;
But the queerest of all, the most gory
Was that day on the tip of the Gaza Strip
I bulldozed Rachel Corrie.
I’m glad that you posted this poem because it brings back fond memories of high school when a friend of mine (long since lost) used to stand on the high school steps, under the street lamp, and recite this by memory, in dramatic fashion, to all of the “Jr. Statesmen” (a high school club) gathered there after our meeting had adjourned for the evening.
If we applauded loud enough, he would follow with Dan McGrew and other Service poems. Great entertainment.
But, what prompted you to post this today? It’s not exactly breaking news...
LOL
The Ballad of Salvation Bill
‘Twas in the bleary middle of the hard-boiled Arctic night,
I was lonesome as a loon, so if you can,
Imagine my emotions of amazement and delight
When I bumped into that Missionary Man.
He was lying lost and dying in the moon’s unholy leer,
And frozen from his toes to finger-tips’
The famished wolf-pack ringed him; but he didn’t seem to fear,
As he pressed his ice-bond Bible to his lips.
‘Twas the limit of my trap-line, with the cabin miles away,
And every step was like a stab of pain;
But I packed him like a baby, and I nursed him night and day,
Till I got him back to health and strength again.
So there we were, benighted in the shadow of the Pole,
And he might have proved a priceless little pard,
If he hadn’t got to worrying about my blessed soul,
And a-quotin’ me his Bible by the yard.
Now there was I, a husky guy, whose god was Nicotine,
With a “coffin-nail” a fixture in my mug;
I rolled them in the pages of a pulpwood magazine,
And hacked them with my jack-knife from the plug.
For, Oh to know the bliss and glow that good tobacco means,
Just live among the everlasting ice . . .
So judge my horror when I found my stock of magazines
Was chewed into a chowder by the mice.
A woeful week went by and not a single pill I had,
Me that would smoke my forty in a day;
I sighed, I swore, I strode the floor; I felt I would go mad:
The gospel-plugger watched me with dismay.
My brow was wet, my teeth were set, my nerves were rasping raw;
And yet that preacher couldn’t understand:
So with despair I wrestled there - when suddenly I saw
The volume he was holding in his hand.
Then something snapped inside my brain, and with an evil start
The wolf-man in me woke to rabid rage.
“I saved your lousy life,” says I; “so show you have a heart,
And tear me out a solitary page.”
He shrank and shrivelled at my words; his face went pewter white;
‘Twas just as if I’d handed him a blow:
And then . . . and then he seemed to swell, and grow to Heaven’s height,
And in a voice that rang he answered: “No!”
I grabbed my loaded rifle and I jabbed it to his chest:
“Come on, you shrimp, give me that Book,” says I.
Well sir, he was a parson, but he stacked up with the best,
And for grit I got to hand it to the guy.
“If I should let you desecrate this Holy Word,” he said,
“My soul would be eternally accurst;
So go on, Bill, I’m ready. You can pump me full of lead
And take it, but - you’ve got to kill me first.”
Now I’m no foul assassin, though I’m full of sinful ways,
And I knew right there the fellow had me beat;
For I felt a yellow mongrel in the glory of his gaze,
And I flung my foolish firearm at his feet,
Then wearily I turned away, and dropped upon my bunk,
And there I lay and blubbered like a kid.
“Forgive me, pard,” says I at last, “for acting like a skunk,
But hide the blasted rifle...” Which he did.
And he also hid his Bible, which was maybe just as well,
For the sight of all that paper gave me pain;
And there were crimson moments when I felt I’d o to hell
To have a single cigarette again.
And so I lay day after day, and brooded dark and deep,
Until one night I thought I’d end it all;
Then rough I roused the preacher, where he stretched pretending sleep,
With his map of horror turned towards the wall.
“See here, my pious pal,” says I, “I’ve stood it long enough...
Behold! I’ve mixed some strychnine in a cup;
Enough to kill a dozen men - believe me it’s no bluff;
Now watch me, for I’m gonna drink it up.
You’ve seen me bludgeoned by despair through bitter days and nights,
And now you’ll see me squirming as I die.
You’re not to blame, you’ve played the game according to your lights...
But how would Christ have played it? - Well, good-bye...”
With that I raised the deadly drink and laid it to my lips,
But he was on me with a tiger-bound;
And as we locked and reeled and rocked with wild and wicked grips,
The poison cup went crashing to the ground.
“Don’t do it, Bill,” he madly shrieked. “Maybe I acted wrong.
See, here’s my Bible - use it as you will;
But promise me - you’ll read a little as you go along...
You do! Then take it, Brother; smoke your fill.”
And so I did. I smoked and smoked from Genesis to Job,
And as I smoked I read each blessed word;
While in the shadow of his bunk I heard him sigh and sob,
And then . . . a most peculiar thing occurred.
I got to reading more and more, and smoking less and less,
Till just about the day his heart was broke,
Says I: “Here, take it back, me lad. I’ve had enough I guess.
Your paper makes a mighty rotten smoke.”
So then and there with plea and prayer he wrestled for my soul,
And I was racked and ravaged by regrets.
But God was good, for lo! next day there came the police patrol,
With paper for a thousand cigarettes. . .
So now I’m called Salvation Bill; I teach the Living Law,
And Bally-hoo the Bible with the best;
And if a guy won’t listen - why, I sock him on the jaw,
And preach the Gospel sitting on his chest.
***
“So now I’m called Salvation Bill And of evil paths
I’ve trod, to him who asks, I say, “Brother, you’ll be
saved If you read and then INHALE the word of God!”
Has anyone heard of this alternate ending?
I have to say that I prefer this ending, because it’s
more clever than merely preaching the Gospel sitting on
someone’s chest;
it ties everything up more nicely, in my opinion.
Anyone else heard this ending?
Where Lenin lies the red flag flies, and the rat-grey workers wait
To tread the gloom of Lenin's Tomb, where the Comrade lies in state.
Work that one through your mouth and savor it. Four uses of alliteration in a single line (I'm counting "rat-grey"). And every word is perfect. Brilliant.
"You know what it's like in the Yukon wild when it's sixty-nine below;
When the ice-worms wriggle their purple heads through the crust of the pale blue snow;
When the pine trees crack like little guns in the silence of the wood,
And the icicles hang down like tusks under the parka hood;
When the stovepipe smoke breaks sudden off, and the sky is weirdly lit,
And the careless feel of a bit of steel burns like a red hot spit..."
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