The Poet: Robert Service, "Prelude"

"Prelude"

"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 Service