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Robert W Service - The Revelation
Work rating: Medium

The same old sprint in the morning, boys, to the same old din and smut;
Chained all day to the same old desk, down in the same old rut;
Posting the same old greasy books, catching the same old train:
Oh, how will I manage to stick it all, if I ever get back again?

We`ve bidden good-bye to life in a cage, we`re finished with pushing a pen;
They`re pumping us full of bellicose rage, they`re showing us how to be men.
We`re only beginning to find ourselves; we`re wonders of brawn and thew;
But when we go back to our Sissy jobs, — oh, what are we going to do?

For shoulders curved with the counter stoop will be carried erect and square;
And faces white from the office light will be bronzed by the open air;
And we`ll walk with the stride of a new-born pride, with a new-found joy in our eyes,
Scornful men who have diced with death under the naked skies.

And when we get back to the dreary grind, and the bald-headed boss`s call,
Don`t you think that the dingy window-blind, and the dingier office wall,
Will suddenly melt to a vision of space, of violent, flame-scarred night?
Then . . . oh, the joy of the danger-thrill, and oh, the roar of the fight!

Don`t you think as we peddle a card of pins the counter will fade away,
And again we`ll be seeing the sand-bag rims, and the barb-wire`s misty grey?
As a flat voice asks for a pound of tea, don`t you fancy we`ll hear instead
The night-wind moan and the soothing drone of the packet that`s overhead?

Don`t you guess that the things we`re seeing now will haunt us through all the years;
Heaven and hell rolled into one, glory and blood and tears;
Life`s pattern picked with a scarlet thread, where once we wove with a grey
To remind us all how we played our part in the shock of an epic day?

Oh, we`re booked for the Great Adventure now, we`re pledged to the Real Romance;
We`ll find ourselves or we`ll lose ourselves somewhere in giddy old France;
We`ll know the zest of the fighter`s life; the best that we have we`ll give;
We`ll hunger and thirst; we`ll die . . . but first — we`ll live; by the gods, we`ll live!

We`ll breathe free air and we`ll bivouac under the starry sky;
We`ll march with men and we`ll fight with men, and we`ll see men laugh and die;
We`ll know such joy as we never dreamed; we`ll fathom the deeps of pain:
But the hardest bit of it all will be — when we come back home again.

For some of us smirk in a chiffon shop, and some of us teach in a school;
Some of us help with the seat of our pants to polish an office stool;
The merits of somebody`s soap or jam some of us seek to explain,
But all of us wonder what we`ll do when we have to go back again.
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