Explore "L'Envoi" by Robert W. Service on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
You who have lived in the Land, / You who have trusted the trail; / You who are strong to withstand, / You who are swift to assail; / Songs have I sung to beguile, / Vintage of desperate years / Hard as a harlot's smile, / Bitter as unshed tears.
Little of joy or mirth, / Little of ease I sing; / Sagas of men of earth, / Humanly suffering, / Such as you all have done; / Savagely faring forth, / Sons of the midnight sun, / Argonauts of the North.
Far in the land God forgot / Glimmers the lure of your trail; / Still in your lust are you taught / Even to win is to fail.
Still must you follow and fight / Under the vampire wing; / There in the long, long night / Hoping and vanquishing.
Husbandmen of the Wild, / Reaping a barren gain; / Scourged by desire, reconciled / Unto disaster and pain; / These my songs are for you, / You who are seared with the brand: / God knows I have tried to be true; / Please God you will understand.