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Gentlemen Adventurers
Gentlemen Adventurers with their past behind them
Dicing with their destiny upon the board of fate,
"Rolling down to Rio" or to Zanzibar you find them,
Sometimes on a liner but more often on a freight;
War has taken toll of them--oh, staggering the roll of them,
Sleeping under crosses on the broeken fields of France--
But now the rest are free again to tempt the land and sea again,
To roam the wide world over in the footsteps of Romance.
Gentlemen Adventurers hear the great winds calling,
Take again the open road, as restless as of yore,
Mastered by a magic that grows ever more enthralling,
Still they man their argosies for a stranger shore;
Though they dream of treasure there, gold beyond all measure there,
It's the Game they care for and that keeps them playing high,
The luck, and every run of it, the chance and change and fun of it,
That makes them roving gamblers and that holds them till they die!
Gentlemen Adventurers, whom age can never wither,
Whose infinite variety dull custom can not stale,
Youth is in the heart of them, and Fortune's gay "come hither"
Sends them forth at eighty on a mad, fantastic trail!
Then there's good strength and health to them and just enough of wealth to them
To start them on their travels--it's all they want or use,
Here's luck, and for the rest of it, be sure they'll make the best of it,
Gentleman Adventurers, wherever they may cruise.
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