English Poetry. Robert William Service. Prelude (In youth I gnawed life’s bitter rind). Роберт Уильям Сервис.

Robert William Service (Роберт Уильям Сервис)

Prelude (In youth I gnawed life’s bitter rind)

In youth I gnawed life's bitter rind
And shared the rugged lot
Of fellows rude and unrefined,
Frustrated and forgot;
And now alas! it is too late
My sorry ways to mend,
So sadly I accept my fate,
A Roughneck to the end.

Profanity is in my voice
And slag is in my rhyme,
For I have mucked with men who curse
And grovel in the grime;
My fingers were not formed, I fear,
To frame a pretty pen,
So please forgive me if I veer
From Virtue now and then.

For I would be the living voice,
Though raucous is its tone,
Of men who rarely may rejoice,
Yet barely ever moan:
The rovers of the raw-ribbed lands,
The lads of lowly worth,
The scallywags with scaley hands
Who weld the ends of earth.

Robert William Service’s other poems:

1. Spanish Women
2. The Prospector
3. Pullman Porter
4. Abandoned Dog
5. The Ballad of Blasphemous Bill

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