{
 "id": "robert-w-service/the-rhyme-of-the-remittance-man",
 "title": "The Rhyme of the Remittance Man",
 "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": 21,
 "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": 40,
  "n_stanzas": 4,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 78,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "There’s a four-pronged buck a-swinging in the shadow of my cabin,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And it roamed the velvet valley till today;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "But I tracked it by the river, and I trailed it in the cover,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And I killed it on the mountain miles away.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Now I’ve had my lazy supper, and the level sun is gleaming",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On the water where the silver salmon play;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And I light my little corncob, and I linger softly dreaming,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In the twilight, of a land that’s far away.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Far away, so faint and far, is flaming London, fevered Paris,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That I fancy I have gained another star;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Far away the din and hurry, far away the sin and worry,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Far away⁠—God knows they cannot be too far.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Gilded galley-slaves of Mammon⁠—how my purse-proud brothers taunt me!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I might have been as well-to-do as they",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Had I clutched like them my chances, learned their wisdom, crushed my fancies,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Starved my soul and gone to business every day.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Well, the cherry bends with blossom, and the vivid grass is springing,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the starlike lily nestles in the green;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And the frogs their joys are singing, and my heart in tune is ringing,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And it doesn’t matter what I might have been,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "While above the scented pine-gloom, piling heights of golden glory,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The sun-god paints his canvas in the west;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "I can couch me deep in clover, I can listen to the story",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of the lazy, lapping water⁠—it is best.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "While the trout leaps in the river, and the blue grouse thrills the cover,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the frozen snow betrays the panther’s track,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And the robin greets the dayspring with the rapture of a lover,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I am happy, and I’ll nevermore go back.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "For I know I’d just be longing for the little old log cabin,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With the morning-glory clinging to the door,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Till I loathed the city places, cursed the care on all the faces,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Turned my back on lazar London evermore.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "So send me far from Lombard Street, and write me down a failure;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Put a little in my purse and leave me free.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Say: “He turned from Fortune’s offering to follow up a pale lure,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He is one of us no longer⁠—let him be.”",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "I am one of you no longer: by the trails my feet have broken,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The dizzy peaks I’ve scaled, the campfire’s glow,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "By the lonely seas I’ve sailed in⁠—yea, the final word is spoken,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I am signed and sealed to nature. Be it so.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}