[pct-l] The Trail Calls

[virgil]

On Wednesday 05 December 2007 12:51:21 hiker97 at aol.com wrote:
> Shweeew writes: As far as the trail calling, I think it is best said by my
> favorite "hiker" poem by Robert Service.? It's called "The Men That Don't
> Fit In". ------------------------------------------
> Wow.? I am going to look up that whole poem.? That is outstanding.

 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.

 If they just went straight they might go far;
 They are strong and brave and true;
 But they're always tired of the things that are,
 And they want the strange and new.
 They say: "Could I find my proper groove,
 What a deep mark I would make!"
 So they chop and change, and each fresh move
 Is only a fresh mistake.

 And each forgets, as he strips and runs
 With a brilliant, fitful pace,
 It's the steady, quiet, plodding ones
 Who win in the lifelong race.
 And each forgets that his youth has fled,
 Forgets that his prime is past,
 Till he stands one day, with a hope that's dead,
 In the glare of the truth at last.

 He has failed, he has failed; he has missed his chance;
 He has just done things by half.
 Life's been a jolly good joke on him,
 And now is the time to laugh.
 Ha, ha! He is one of the Legion Lost;
 He was never meant to win;
 He's a rolling stone, and it's bred in the bone;
 He's a man who won't fit in.

Robert Service

-- 
"I came into this game for adventure - go anywhere, travel light, get in, get
out, wherever there's trouble, a man alone."

Robert De Niro as Harry Tuttle in Brazil.