"The Men Who Don't Fit In" by Robert W. Service

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Robert W. Service (1874 - 1958) a.k.a "the Canadian Kipling" and "the Bard of the Yukon" held this perspective: "The only society I like is that which is rough and tough - and the tougher the better. That's where you get down to bedrock and meet human people."

Service's poem, "The Men Who Don't Fit In" tells the story of restless men who make their own kind of mark in the world. One detail not to miss: watch as Service moves from plural to singular, culling one man out of the herd (as it were) who makes the realization that he's not only grown old, but there's more life to live--but how will he do it? Makes me wonder if this poem influenced Stan Wilson to write, "can't lose my way, all directions are the same when i'm travelin' . . . I'm just a rolling stone."

Enjoy Robert W. Service's poem recited in the video (below), filmed with creative interpretation by Christopher Herwig while hiking across Iceland in 2010.

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.

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