More Robert Service – The Call of the Wild

Back in March I posted a poem by Robert Service called “The Men That Don’t Fit In,” and looking over the blog this morning I thought it was time for another dose of Service.  You can read more of his poetry here or here, and remember, they are best when read aloud.

Reading this poem and the one I posted in March is helping me understand at least one reason why seminary didn’t work so well for me.

The Call of the Wild

Have you gazed on naked grandeur where there’s nothing else to gaze on,
Set pieces and drop-curtain scenes galore,
Big mountains heaved to heaven, which the blinding sunsets blazon,
Black canyons where the rapids rip and roar?
Have you swept the visioned valley with the green stream streaking through it,
Searched the Vastness for a something you have lost?
Have you strung your soul to silence? Then for God’s sake go and do it;
Hear the challenge, learn the lesson, pay the cost.

The Men That Don’t Fit In – Robert Service

If you’ve never read any poetry by Robert Service, you should.  To assist you in this endeavor, I’m reproducing here one of his earlier poems, “The Men That Don’t Fit In.”  Service lived in the Yukon Territory during the first years of the 20th century, and he wrote lots of poetry that described what life was like there during the days of the gold rush.

You can read many of these poems courtesy of Google books here.  By the way, these poems really need to be read out loud.  And while you’re there, if you follow the link to Google books, check out “The Cremation of Sam McGee.”

I’m not sure, but I think I first ran into Robert Service’s poetry in the back of an Outward Bound Instructor’s Manual.  And this may surprise some people, but Jim Elliot was a fan of Service’s poetry.

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.