Rhymes Of A Rolling Stone Part 1

Rhymes of a Rolling Stone.

by Robert W. Service.

Prelude

_I sing no idle songs of dalliance days, No dreams Elysian inspire my rhyming; I have no Celia to enchant my lays, No pipes of Pan have set my heart to chiming.

I am no wordsmith dripping gems divine Into the golden chalice of a sonnet; If love songs witch you, close this book of mine, Waste no time on it._

_Yet bring I to my work an eager joy, A l.u.s.ty love of life and all things human; Still in me leaps the wonder of the boy, A pride in man, a deathless faith in woman.

Still red blood calls, still rings the valiant fray; Adventure beacons through the summer gloaming: Oh long and long and long will be the day Ere I come homing!_

_This earth is ours to love: lute, brush and pen, They are but tongues to tell of life sincerely; The thaumaturgic Day, the might of men, O G.o.d of Scribes, grant us to grave them clearly!

Grant heart that homes in heart, then all is well.

Honey is honey-sweet, howe'er the hiving.

Each to his work, his wage at evening bell The strength of striving._

A Rolling Stone

_There's suns.h.i.+ne 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 pa.s.sion to be free.

To pitch my tent with no prosy plan, To range and to change at will; To mock at the masters.h.i.+p 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 G.o.d! let me be free; For once I know in the long ago, They made a slave of me.

In a flannel s.h.i.+rt 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 G.o.d 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!_

The Soldier of Fortune

"Deny your G.o.d!" they ringed me with their spears; Blood-crazed were they, and reeking from the strife; h.e.l.l-hot their hate, and venom-fanged their sneers, And one man spat on me and nursed a knife.

And there was I, sore wounded and alone, I, the last living of my slaughtered band.

Oh sinister the sky, and cold as stone!

In one red laugh of horror reeled the land.

And dazed and desperate I faced their spears, And like a flame out-leaped that naked knife, And like a serpent stung their bitter jeers: "Deny your G.o.d, and we will give you life."

Deny my G.o.d! Oh life was very sweet!

And it is hard in youth and hope to die; And there my comrades dear lay at my feet, And in that blear of blood soon must I lie.

And yet . . . I almost laughed -- it seemed so odd, For long and long had I not vainly tried To reason out and body forth my G.o.d, And prayed for light, and doubted -- and _DENIED_: Denied the Being I could not conceive, Denied a life-to-be beyond the grave. . . .

And now they ask me, who do not believe, Just to deny, to voice my doubt, to save This life of mine that sings so in the sun, The bloom of youth yet red upon my cheek, My only life! -- O fools! 'tis easy done, I will deny . . . and yet I do not speak.

"Deny your G.o.d!" their spears are all agleam, And I can see their eyes with blood-l.u.s.t s.h.i.+ne; Their snarling voices shrill into a scream, And, mad to slay, they quiver for the sign.

Deny my G.o.d! yes, I could do it well; Yet if I did, what of my race, my name?

How they would spit on me, these dogs of h.e.l.l!

Spurn me, and put on me the brand of shame.

A white man's honour! what of that, I say?

Shall these black curs cry "Coward" in my face?

They who would perish for their G.o.ds of clay -- Shall I defile my country and my race?

My country! what's my country to me now?

Soldier of Fortune, free and far I roam; All men are brothers in my heart, I vow; The wide and wondrous world is all my home.

My country! reverent of her splendid Dead, Her heroes proud, her martyrs pierced with pain: For me her puissant blood was vainly shed; For me her drums of battle beat in vain, And free I fare, half-heedless of her fate: No faith, no flag I owe -- then why not seek This last loop-hole of life? Why hesitate?

I will deny . . . and yet I do not speak.

"Deny your G.o.d!" their spears are poised on high, And tense and terrible they wait the word; And dark and darker glooms the dreary sky, And in that hush of horror no thing stirred.

Then, through the ringing terror and sheer hate Leaped there a vision to me -- Oh, how far!

A face, Her face . . . through all my stormy fate A joy, a strength, a glory and a star.

Beneath the pines, where lonely camp-fires gleam, In seas forlorn, amid the deserts drear, How I had gladdened to that face of dream!

And never, never had it seemed so dear.

O silken hair that veils the sunny brow!

O eyes of grey, so tender and so true!

O lips of smiling sweetness! must I now For ever and for ever go from you?

Ah, yes, I must . . . for if I do this thing, How can I look into your face again?

Knowing you think me more than half a king, I with my craven heart, my honour slain.

No! no! my mind's made up. I gaze above, Into that sky insensate as a stone; Not for my creed, my country, but my Love Will I stand up and meet my death alone.

Then though it be to utter dark I sink, The G.o.d that dwells in me is not denied; "Best" triumphs over "Beast", -- and so I think Humanity itself is glorified. . . .

"And now, my butchers, I embrace my fate.