{
 "id": "robert-w-service/the-men-that-dont-fit-in",
 "title": "The Men That Don’t Fit In",
 "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": 19,
 "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": 32,
  "n_stanzas": 4,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 55,
  "max_indent": 3
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "There’s a race of men that don’t fit in,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A race that can’t stay still;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "So they break the hearts of kith and kin,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And they roam the world at will.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "They range the field and they rove the flood,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And they climb the mountain’s crest;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Theirs is the curse of the gipsy blood,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And they don’t know how to rest.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "If they just went straight they might go far;",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "They are strong and brave and true;",
    "indent": 3
   },
   {
    "text": "But they’re always tired of the things that are,",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "And they want the strange and new.",
    "indent": 3
   },
   {
    "text": "They say: “Could I find my proper groove,",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "What a deep mark I would make!”",
    "indent": 3
   },
   {
    "text": "So they chop and change, and each fresh move",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Is only a fresh mistake.",
    "indent": 3
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And each forgets, as he strips and runs,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With a brilliant, fitful pace,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "It’s the steady, quiet, plodding ones",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who win in the lifelong race.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And each forgets that his youth has fled,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Forgets that his prime is past,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Till he stands one day with a hope that’s dead",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In the glare of the truth at last.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "He has failed, he has failed; he has missed his chance;",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "He has just done things by half.",
    "indent": 3
   },
   {
    "text": "Life’s been a jolly good joke on him,",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "And now is the time to laugh.",
    "indent": 3
   },
   {
    "text": "Ha, ha! He is one of the Legion Lost;",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "He was never meant to win;",
    "indent": 3
   },
   {
    "text": "He’s a rolling stone, and it’s bred in the bone;",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "He’s a man who won’t fit in.",
    "indent": 3
   }
  ]
 ]
}