{"id":3267,"date":"2009-11-20T23:08:33","date_gmt":"2009-11-21T03:08:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/?p=3267"},"modified":"2009-11-21T00:22:28","modified_gmt":"2009-11-21T04:22:28","slug":"the-men-that-dont-fit-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/2009\/11\/20\/the-men-that-dont-fit-in\/","title":{"rendered":"The Men That Don’t Fit In"},"content":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s a race of men that don\u2019t fit in,
\nA race that can\u2019t stay still;
\nSo they break the hearts of kith and kin,
\nAnd they roam the world at will.
\nThey range the field and they rove the flood,
\nAnd they climb the mountain\u2019s crest;
\nTheirs is the curse of the gypsy blood,
\nAnd they don\u2019t know how to rest.<\/p>\n

If they just went straight they might go far;
\nThey are strong and brave and true;
\nBut they\u2019re always tired of the things that are,
\nAnd they want the strange and new.
\nThey say: \u201cCould I find my proper groove,
\nWhat a deep mark I would make!\u201d
\nSo they chop and change, and each fresh move
\nIs only a fresh mistake.<\/p>\n

And each forgets, as he strips and runs
\nWith a brilliant, fitful pace,
\nIt\u2019s the steady, quiet, plodding ones
\nWho win in the lifelong race.
\nAnd each forgets that his youth has fled,
\nForgets that his prime is past,
\nTill he stands one day, with a hope that\u2019s dead,
\nIn the glare of the truth at last.<\/p>\n

He has failed, he has failed; he has missed his chance;
\nHe has just done things by half.
\nLife\u2019s been a jolly good joke on him,
\nAnd now is the time to laugh.
\nHa, ha! He is one of the Legion Lost;
\nHe was never meant to win;
\nHe\u2019s a rolling stone, and it\u2019s bred in the bone;
\nHe\u2019s a man who won\u2019t fit in.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

—Robert Service<\/a> (1874 \u2013 1958)<\/p>\n

I’ve been a fan of Service for quite a long time–in fact one of my old roommates and I once memorized The Cremation of Sam McGee<\/a>, and used to declaim it on random social occasions; it’s a poem that demands<\/em> performance–but today was the first time I encountered this particular poem. I really, really like it. So I’ll share it with you guys.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s a race of men that don\u2019t fit in, A race that can\u2019t 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\u2019s crest; Theirs is the curse of the gypsy blood, And they don\u2019t know how to… Read more →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[101,145,123,194,100,126,104],"class_list":["post-3267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","tag-aging","tag-leaving","tag-life","tag-poem","tag-poetry","tag-something-great","tag-the-road","xfolkentry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5UQvw-QH","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3267"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3267\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3271,"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3267\/revisions\/3271"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}