The Men That Don't Fit In

A friend of mine shared with me eight lines of this wonderful poem a while back when visiting us at our home.  The way he recited and enunciated it sent shivers up and down my spine.  I had to discover the rest of it and the author. 

Interestingly, Robert Service drifted for a while in his life; many periods of work punctuated by none.  The Canadian whiskey maker Yukon Jack used his poems in multiple ads in the 70s; one of them is as follows.  If you have not come across this, I hope you will enjoy it.

The Men That Don't Fit In

BY ROBERT W. SERVICE

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.