{
 "id": "robert-w-service/the-lone-trail",
 "title": "The Lone Trail",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Robert W. Service",
 "poet_slug": "robert-w-service",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Songs of a Sourdough",
 "book_slug": "songs-of-a-sourdough",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 5,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1907,
  "venue": "Songs of a Sourdough (1907)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/songsofsourdoug00serv"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/robert-w-service_songs-of-a-sourdough",
  "file": "poetry.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/25546",
   "https://archive.org/details/songsofsourdoug00serv"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-20"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 29,
  "n_stanzas": 3,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 85,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Ye who know the Lone Trail fain would follow it,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Though it lead to glory or the darkness of the pit.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Ye who take the Lone Trail, bid your love goodbye;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The Lone Trail, the Lone Trail follow till you die.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The trails of the world be countless, and most of the trails be tried;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You tread on the heels of the many, till you come where the ways divide;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And one lies safe in the sunlight, and the other is dreary and wan,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yet you look aslant at the Lone Trail, and the Lone Trail lures you on.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And somehow you’re sick of the highway, with its noise and its easy needs,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And you seek the risk of the byway, and you reck not where it leads.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And sometimes it leads to the desert, and the tongue swells out of the mouth,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And you stagger blind to the mirage, to die in the mocking drouth.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And sometimes it leads to the mountain, to the light of the lone campfire,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And you gnaw your belt in the anguish of hunger-goaded desire.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And sometimes it leads to the Southland, to the swamp where the orchid glows,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And you rave to your grave with the fever, and they rob the corpse for its clothes.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And sometimes it leads to the Northland, and the scurvy softens your bones,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And your flesh dints in like putty, and you spit out your teeth like stones.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And sometimes it leads to a coral reef in the wash of a weedy sea,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And you sit and stare at the empty glare where the gulls wait greedily.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And sometimes it leads to an Arctic trail, and the snows where your torn feet freeze,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And you whittle away the useless clay, and crawl on your hands and knees.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Often it leads to the dead-pit; always it leads to pain;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By the bones of your brothers ye know it, but oh, to follow you’re fain.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By your bones they will follow behind you, till the ways of the world are made plain.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Bid goodbye to sweetheart, bid goodbye to friend;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The Lone Trail, the Lone Trail follow to the end.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Tarry not, and fear not, chosen of the true;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Lover of the Lone Trail, the Lone Trail waits for you.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}