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diff --git a/old/rolst10.txt b/old/rolst10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..00831bf --- /dev/null +++ b/old/rolst10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3818 @@ +The Project Gutenberg Etext of Rhymes of a Rolling Stone +by Robert W. Service + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations* + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and +further information is included below. We need your donations. + + +Rhymes of a Rolling Stone + +by Robert W. Service + +August, 1995 [Etext #309] + + +entered/proofed by A. 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If you + don't derive profits, no royalty is due. Royalties are + payable to "Project Gutenberg Association / Illinois + Benedictine College" within the 60 days following each + date you prepare (or were legally required to prepare) + your annual (or equivalent periodic) tax return. + +WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO? +The Project gratefully accepts contributions in money, time, +scanning machines, OCR software, public domain etexts, royalty +free copyright licenses, and every other sort of contribution +you can think of. Money should be paid to "Project Gutenberg +Association / Illinois Benedictine College". + +This "Small Print!" by Charles B. Kramer, Attorney +Internet (72600.2026@compuserve.com); TEL: (212-254-5093) +*END*THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + + +Rhymes of a Rolling Stone + +by Robert W. Service [British-born Canadian Poet -- 1874-1958.] + + + + + + +[Note on text: Italicized stanzas are indented 5 spaces. +Stanzas that were italicized AND indented are indented 10 spaces. +Italicized words and phrases are capitalized. +Lines longer than 78 characters are broken according to metre, +and the continuation is indented two spaces.] + +[This etext is transcribed from the 1912 edition, 1917 printing. +Some very minor changes have been made in spelling and punctuation +after consulting another edition.] + + + + + + +I have no doubt at all the Devil grins, + As seas of ink I spatter. +Ye gods, forgive my "literary" sins -- + The other kind don't matter. + + + + + + +Rhymes of a Rolling Stone +by Robert W. Service + +Author of "The Spell of the Yukon", "Ballads of a Cheechako", etc. + + + + + + +Contents + + + +Prelude +A Rolling Stone +The Soldier of Fortune +The Gramaphone at Fond-Du-Lac +The Land of Beyond +Sunshine +The Idealist +Athabaska Dick +Cheer +The Return +The Junior God +The Nostomaniac +Ambition +To Sunnydale +The Blind and the Dead +The Atavist +The Sceptic +The Rover +Barb-Wire Bill +"?" +Just Think! +The Lunger +The Mountain and the Lake +The Headliner and the Breadliner +Death in the Arctic +Dreams Are Best +The Quitter +The Cow-Juice Cure +While the Bannock Bakes +The Lost Master +Little Moccasins +The Wanderlust +The Trapper's Christmas Eve +The World's All Right +The Baldness of Chewed-Ear +The Mother +The Dreamer +At Thirty-Five +The Squaw Man +Home and Love +I'm Scared of it All +A Song of Success +The Song of the Camp-Fire +Her Letter +The Man Who Knew +The Logger +The Passing of the Year +The Ghosts +Good-Bye, Little Cabin +Heart o' the North +The Scribe's Prayer + + + + + + +Rhymes of a Rolling Stone + + + + + + +Prelude + + + + I sing no idle songs of dalliance days, + No dreams Elysian inspire my rhyming; + I have no Celia to enchant my lays, + No pipes of Pan have set my heart to chiming. + I am no wordsmith dripping gems divine + Into the golden chalice of a sonnet; + If love songs witch you, close this book of mine, + Waste no time on it. + + Yet bring I to my work an eager joy, + A lusty love of life and all things human; + Still in me leaps the wonder of the boy, + A pride in man, a deathless faith in woman. + Still red blood calls, still rings the valiant fray; + Adventure beacons through the summer gloaming: + Oh long and long and long will be the day + Ere I come homing! + + This earth is ours to love: lute, brush and pen, + They are but tongues to tell of life sincerely; + The thaumaturgic Day, the might of men, + O God of Scribes, grant us to grave them clearly! + Grant heart that homes in heart, then all is well. + Honey is honey-sweet, howe'er the hiving. + Each to his work, his wage at evening bell + The strength of striving. + + + + +A Rolling Stone + + + + There's sunshine in the heart of me, + My blood sings in the breeze; + The mountains are a part of me, + I'm fellow to the trees. + My golden youth I'm squandering, + Sun-libertine am I; + A-wandering, a-wandering, + Until the day I die. + +I was once, I declare, a Stone-Age man, + And I roomed in the cool of a cave; +I have known, I will swear, in a new life-span, + The fret and the sweat of a slave: +For far over all that folks hold worth, + There lives and there leaps in me +A love of the lowly things of earth, + And a passion to be free. + +To pitch my tent with no prosy plan, + To range and to change at will; +To mock at the mastership of man, + To seek Adventure's thrill. +Carefree to be, as a bird that sings; + To go my own sweet way; +To reck not at all what may befall, + But to live and to love each day. + +To make my body a temple pure + Wherein I dwell serene; +To care for the things that shall endure, + The simple, sweet and clean. +To oust out envy and hate and rage, + To breathe with no alarm; +For Nature shall be my anchorage, + And none shall do me harm. + +To shun all lures that debauch the soul, + The orgied rites of the rich; +To eat my crust as a rover must + With the rough-neck down in the ditch. +To trudge by his side whate'er betide; + To share his fire at night; +To call him friend to the long trail-end, + And to read his heart aright. + +To scorn all strife, and to view all life + With the curious eyes of a child; +From the plangent sea to the prairie, + From the slum to the heart of the Wild. +From the red-rimmed star to the speck of sand, + From the vast to the greatly small; +For I know that the whole for good is planned, + And I want to see it all. + +To see it all, the wide world-way, + From the fig-leaf belt to the Pole; +With never a one to say me nay, + And none to cramp my soul. +In belly-pinch I will pay the price, + But God! let me be free; +For once I know in the long ago, + They made a slave of me. + +In a flannel shirt from earth's clean dirt, + Here, pal, is my calloused hand! +Oh, I love each day as a rover may, + Nor seek to understand. +To ENJOY is good enough for me; + The gipsy of God am I; +Then here's a hail to each flaring dawn! +And here's a cheer to the night that's gone! +And may I go a-roaming on + Until the day I die! + + Then every star shall sing to me + Its song of liberty; + And every morn shall bring to me + Its mandate to be free. + In every throbbing vein of me + I'll feel the vast Earth-call; + O body, heart and brain of me + Praise Him who made it all! + + + + +The Soldier of Fortune + + + +"Deny your God!" they ringed me with their spears; +Blood-crazed were they, and reeking from the strife; +Hell-hot their hate, and venom-fanged their sneers, +And one man spat on me and nursed a knife. +And there was I, sore wounded and alone, +I, the last living of my slaughtered band. +Oh sinister the sky, and cold as stone! +In one red laugh of horror reeled the land. +And dazed and desperate I faced their spears, +And like a flame out-leaped that naked knife, +And like a serpent stung their bitter jeers: +"Deny your God, and we will give you life." + +Deny my God! Oh life was very sweet! +And it is hard in youth and hope to die; +And there my comrades dear lay at my feet, +And in that blear of blood soon must I lie. +And yet . . . I almost laughed -- it seemed so odd, +For long and long had I not vainly tried +To reason out and body forth my God, +And prayed for light, and doubted -- and DENIED: +Denied the Being I could not conceive, +Denied a life-to-be beyond the grave. . . . +And now they ask me, who do not believe, +Just to deny, to voice my doubt, to save +This life of mine that sings so in the sun, +The bloom of youth yet red upon my cheek, +My only life! -- O fools! 'tis easy done, +I will deny . . . and yet I do not speak. + +"Deny your God!" their spears are all agleam, +And I can see their eyes with blood-lust shine; +Their snarling voices shrill into a scream, +And, mad to slay, they quiver for the sign. +Deny my God! yes, I could do it well; +Yet if I did, what of my race, my name? +How they would spit on me, these dogs of hell! +Spurn me, and put on me the brand of shame. +A white man's honour! what of that, I say? +Shall these black curs cry "Coward" in my face? +They who would perish for their gods of clay -- +Shall I defile my country and my race? +My country! what's my country to me now? +Soldier of Fortune, free and far I roam; +All men are brothers in my heart, I vow; +The wide and wondrous world is all my home. +My country! reverent of her splendid Dead, +Her heroes proud, her martyrs pierced with pain: +For me her puissant blood was vainly shed; +For me her drums of battle beat in vain, +And free I fare, half-heedless of her fate: +No faith, no flag I owe -- then why not seek +This last loop-hole of life? Why hesitate? +I will deny . . . and yet I do not speak. + +"Deny your God!" their spears are poised on high, +And tense and terrible they wait the word; +And dark and darker glooms the dreary sky, +And in that hush of horror no thing stirred. +Then, through the ringing terror and sheer hate +Leaped there a vision to me -- Oh, how far! +A face, Her face . . . through all my stormy fate +A joy, a strength, a glory and a star. +Beneath the pines, where lonely camp-fires gleam, +In seas forlorn, amid the deserts drear, +How I had gladdened to that face of dream! +And never, never had it seemed so dear. +O silken hair that veils the sunny brow! +O eyes of grey, so tender and so true! +O lips of smiling sweetness! must I now +For ever and for ever go from you? +Ah, yes, I must . . . for if I do this thing, +How can I look into your face again? +Knowing you think me more than half a king, +I with my craven heart, my honour slain. + +No! no! my mind's made up. I gaze above, +Into that sky insensate as a stone; +Not for my creed, my country, but my Love +Will I stand up and meet my death alone. +Then though it be to utter dark I sink, +The God that dwells in me is not denied; +"Best" triumphs over "Beast", -- and so I think +Humanity itself is glorified. . . . + +"And now, my butchers, I embrace my fate. +Come! let my heart's blood slake the thirsty sod. +Curst be the life you offer! Glut your hate! +Strike! Strike, you dogs! I'll NOT deny my God." + +I saw the spears that seemed a-leap to slay, +All quiver earthward at the headman's nod; +And in a daze of dream I heard him say: +"Go, set him free who serves so well his God!" + + + + +The Gramaphone at Fond-Du-Lac + + + +Now Eddie Malone got a swell grammyfone to draw all the trade to his store; +An' sez he: "Come along for a season of song, + which the like ye had niver before." +Then Dogrib, an' Slave, an' Yellow-knife brave, an' Cree in his dinky canoe, +Confluated near, to see an' to hear Ed's grammyfone make its dayboo. + +Then Ed turned the crank, an' there on the bank + they squatted like bumps on a log. +For acres around there wasn't a sound, not even the howl of a dog. +When out of the horn there sudden was born such a marvellous elegant tone; +An' then like a spell on that auddyence fell + the voice of its first grammyfone. + +"BAD MEDICINE!" cried Old Tom, the One-eyed, + an' made for to jump in the lake; +But no one gave heed to his little stampede, + so he guessed he had made a mistake. +Then Roll-in-the-Mud, a chief of the blood, observed in choice Chippewayan: +"You've brought us canned beef, an' it's now my belief + that this here's a case of `CANNED MAN'." + +Well, though I'm not strong on the Dago in song, + that sure got me goin' for fair. +There was Crusoe an' Scotty, an' Ma'am Shoeman Hank, + an' Melber an' Bonchy was there. +'Twas silver an' gold, an' sweetness untold + to hear all them big guinneys sing; +An' thick all around an' inhalin' the sound, them Indians formed in a ring. + +So solemn they sat, an' they smoked an' they spat, + but their eyes sort o' glistened an' shone; +Yet niver a word of approvin' occurred till that guy Harry Lauder came on. +Then hunter of moose, an' squaw an' papoose + jest laughed till their stummicks was sore; +Six times Eddie set back that record an' yet + they hollered an' hollered for more. + +I'll never forget that frame-up, you bet; them caverns of sunset agleam; +Them still peaks aglow, them shadders below, + an' the lake like a petrified dream; +The teepees that stood by the edge of the wood; + the evenin' star blinkin' alone; +The peace an' the rest, an' final an' best, the music of Ed's grammyfone. + +Then sudden an' clear there rang on my ear a song mighty simple an' old; +Heart-hungry an' high it thrilled to the sky, + all about "silver threads in the gold". +'Twas tender to tears, an' it brung back the years, + the mem'ries that hallow an' yearn; +'Twas home-love an' joy, 'twas the thought of my boy . . . + an' right there I vowed I'd return. + +Big Four-finger Jack was right at my back, an' I saw with a kind o' surprise, +He gazed at the lake with a heartful of ache, + an' the tears irrigated his eyes. +An' sez he: "Cuss me, pard! but that there hits me hard; + I've a mother does nuthin' but wait. +She's turned eighty-three, an' she's only got me, + an' I'm scared it'll soon be too late." + + * * * * * + +On Fond-du-lac's shore I'm hearin' once more + that blessed old grammyfone play. +The summer's all gone, an' I'm still livin' on + in the same old haphazardous way. +Oh, I cut out the booze, an' with muscles an' thews + I corralled all the coin to go back; +But it wasn't to be: he'd a mother, you see, + so I -- SLIPPED IT TO FOUR-FINGER JACK. + + + + +The Land of Beyond + + + +Have ever you heard of the Land of Beyond, + That dreams at the gates of the day? +Alluring it lies at the skirts of the skies, + And ever so far away; +Alluring it calls: O ye the yoke galls, + And ye of the trail overfond, +With saddle and pack, by paddle and track, + Let's go to the Land of Beyond! + +Have ever you stood where the silences brood, + And vast the horizons begin, +At the dawn of the day to behold far away + The goal you would strive for and win? +Yet ah! in the night when you gain to the height, + With the vast pool of heaven star-spawned, +Afar and agleam, like a valley of dream, + Still mocks you a Land of Beyond. + +Thank God! there is always a Land of Beyond + For us who are true to the trail; +A vision to seek, a beckoning peak, + A farness that never will fail; +A pride in our soul that mocks at a goal, + A manhood that irks at a bond, +And try how we will, unattainable still, + Behold it, our Land of Beyond! + + + + +Sunshine + + + + I + +Flat as a drum-head stretch the haggard snows; +The mighty skies are palisades of light; +The stars are blurred; the silence grows and grows; +Vaster and vaster vaults the icy night. +Here in my sleeping-bag I cower and pray: +"Silence and night, have pity! stoop and slay." + +I have not slept for many, many days. +I close my eyes with weariness -- that's all. +I still have strength to feed the drift-wood blaze, +That flickers weirdly on the icy wall. +I still have strength to pray: "God rest her soul, +Here in the awful shadow of the Pole." + +There in the cabin's alcove low she lies, +Still candles gleaming at her head and feet; +All snow-drop white, ash-cold, with closed eyes, +Lips smiling, hands at rest -- O God, how sweet! +How all unutterably sweet she seems. . . . +Not dead, not dead indeed -- she dreams, she dreams. + + + II + +"Sunshine", I called her, and she brought, I vow, +God's blessed sunshine to this life of mine. +I was a rover, of the breed who plough +Life's furrow in a far-flung, lonely line; +The wilderness my home, my fortune cast +In a wild land of dearth, barbaric, vast. + +When did I see her first? Long had I lain +Groping my way to life through fevered gloom. +Sudden the cloud of darkness left my brain; +A velvet bar of sunshine pierced the room, +And in that mellow glory aureoled +She stood, she stood, all golden in its gold. + +Sunshine! O miracle! the earth grew glad; +Radiant each blade of grass, each living thing. +What a huge strength, high hope, proud will I had! +All the wide world with rapture seemed to ring. +Would she but wed me? YES: then fared we forth +Into the vast, unvintageable North. + + + III + + In Muskrat Land the conies leap, + The wavies linger in their flight; + The jewelled, snakelike rivers creep; + The sun, sad rogue, is out all night; + The great wood bison paws the sand, + In Muskrat Land, in Muskrat Land. + + In Muskrat Land dim streams divide + The tundras belted by the sky. + How sweet in slim canoe to glide, + And dream, and let the world go by! + Build gay camp-fires on greening strand! + In Muskrat Land, in Muskrat Land. + + + IV + +And so we dreamed and drifted, she and I; +And how she loved that free, unfathomed life! +There in the peach-bloom of the midnight sky, +The silence welded us, true man and wife. +Then North and North invincibly we pressed +Beyond the Circle, to the world's white crest. + +And on the wind-flailed Arctic waste we stayed, +Dwelt with the Huskies by the Polar sea. +Fur had they, white fox, marten, mink to trade, +And we had food-stuff, bacon, flour and tea. +So we made snug, chummed up with all the band: +Sudden the Winter swooped on Husky Land. + + + V + +What was that ill so sinister and dread, +Smiting the tribe with sickness to the bone? +So that we waked one morn to find them fled; +So that we stood and stared, alone, alone. +Bravely she smiled and looked into my eyes; +Laughed at their troubled, stern, foreboding pain; +Gaily she mocked the menace of the skies, +Turned to our cheery cabin once again, +Saying: "'Twill soon be over, dearest one, +The long, long night: then O the sun, the sun!" + + + VI + + God made a heart of gold, of gold, + Shining and sweet and true; + Gave it a home of fairest mould, + Blest it, and called it -- You. + + God gave the rose its grace of glow, + And the lark its radiant glee; + But, better than all, I know, I know + God gave you, Heart, to me. + + + VII + +She was all sunshine in those dubious days; +Our cabin beaconed with defiant light; +We chattered by the friendly drift-wood blaze; +Closer and closer cowered the hag-like night. +A wolf-howl would have been a welcome sound, +And there was none in all that stricken land; +Yet with such silence, darkness, death around, +Learned we to love as few can understand. +Spirit with spirit fused, and soul with soul, +There in the sullen shadow of the Pole. + + + VIII + +What was that haunting horror of the night? +Brave was she; buoyant, full of sunny cheer. +Why was her face so small, so strangely white? +Then did I turn from her, heart-sick with fear; +Sought in my agony the outcast snows; +Prayed in my pain to that insensate sky; +Grovelled and sobbed and cursed, and then arose: +"Sunshine! O heart of gold! to die! to die!" + + + IX + +She died on Christmas day -- it seems so sad +That one you love should die on Christmas day. +Head-bowed I knelt by her; O God! I had +No tears to shed, no moan, no prayer to pray. +I heard her whisper: "Call me, will you, dear? +They say Death parts, but I won't go away. +I will be with you in the cabin here; +Oh I will plead with God to let me stay! +Stay till the Night is gone, till Spring is nigh, +Till sunshine comes . . . be brave . . . I'm tired . . . good-bye. . . ." + + + X + +For weeks, for months I have not seen the sun; +The minatory dawns are leprous pale; +The felon days malinger one by one; +How like a dream Life is! how vain! how stale! +I, too, am faint; that vampire-like disease +Has fallen on me; weak and cold am I, +Hugging a tiny fire in fear I freeze: +The cabin must be cold, and so I try +To bear the frost, the frost that fights decay, +The frost that keeps her beautiful alway. + + + XI + + She lies within an icy vault; + It glitters like a cave of salt. + All marble-pure and angel-sweet + With candles at her head and feet, + Under an ermine robe she lies. + I kiss her hands, I kiss her eyes: + "Come back, come back, O Love, I pray, + Into this house, this house of clay! + Answer my kisses soft and warm; + Nestle again within my arm. + Come! for I know that you are near; + Open your eyes and look, my dear. + Just for a moment break the mesh; + Back from the spirit leap to flesh. + Weary I wait; the night is black; + Love of my life, come back, come back!" + + + XII + +Last night maybe I was a little mad, +For as I prayed despairful by her side, +Such a strange, antic visioning I had: +Lo! it did seem HER EYES WERE OPEN WIDE. +Surely I must have dreamed! I stared once more. . . . +No, 'twas a candle's trick, a shadow cast. +There were her lashes locking as before. +(Oh, but it filled me with a joy so vast!) +No, 'twas a freak, a fancy of the brain, +(Oh, but to-night I'll try again, again!) + + + XIII + +It was no dream; now do I know that Love +Leapt from the starry battlements of Death; +For in my vigil as I bent above, +Calling her name with eager, burning breath, +Sudden there came a change: again I saw +The radiance of the rose-leaf stain her cheek; +Rivers of rapture thrilled in sunny thaw; +Cleft were her coral lips as if to speak; +Curved were her tender arms as if to cling; +Open the flower-like eyes of lucent blue, +Looking at me with love so pitying +That I could fancy Heaven shining through. +"Sunshine," I faltered, "stay with me, oh, stay!" +Yet ere I finished, in a moment's flight, +There in her angel purity she lay -- +Ah! but I know she'll come again to-night. +EVEN AS RADIANT SWORD LEAPS FROM THE SHEATH, +SOUL FROM THE BODY LEAPS -- WE CALL IT DEATH. + + + XIV + +Even as this line I write, +Do I know that she is near; +Happy am I, every night +Comes she back to bid me cheer; +Kissing her, I hold her fast; +Win her into life at last. + +Did I dream that yesterday +On yon mountain ridge a glow +Soft as moonstone paled away, +Leaving less forlorn the snow? +Could it be the sun? Oh, fain +Would I see the sun again! + +Oh, to see a coral dawn +Gladden to a crocus glow! +Day's a spectre dim and wan, +Dancing on the furtive snow; +Night's a cloud upon my brain: +Oh, to see the sun again! + +You who find us in this place, +Have you pity in your breast; +Let us in our last embrace, +Under earth sun-hallowed rest. +Night's a claw upon my brain: +Oh, to see the sun again! + + + XV + +The Sun! at last the Sun! I write these lines, +Here on my knees, with feeble, fumbling hand. +Look! in yon mountain cleft a radiance shines, +Gleam of a primrose -- see it thrill, expand, +Grow glorious. Dear God be praised! it streams +Into the cabin in a gush of gold. +Look! there she stands, the angel of my dreams, +All in the radiant shimmer aureoled; +First as I saw her from my bed of pain; +First as I loved her when the darkness passed. +Now do I know that Life is not in vain; +Now do I know God cares, at last, at last! +Light outlives dark, joy grief, and Love's the sum: +Heart of my heart! Sunshine! I come . . . I come. . . . + + + + +The Idealist + + + +Oh you who have daring deeds to tell! + And you who have felt Ambition's spell! +Have you heard of the louse who longed to dwell + In the golden hair of a queen? +He sighed all day and he sighed all night, + And no one could understand it quite, +For the head of a slut is a louse's delight, + But he pined for the head of a queen. + +So he left his kinsfolk in merry play, + And off by his lonesome he stole away, +From the home of his youth so bright and gay, + And gloriously unclean. +And at last he came to the palace gate, + And he made his way in a manner straight +(For a louse may go where a man must wait) + To the tiring-room of the queen. + +The queen she spake to her tiring-maid: + "There's something the matter, I'm afraid. +To-night ere for sleep my hair ye braid, + Just see what may be seen." +And lo, when they combed that shining hair + They found him alone in his glory there, +And he cried: "I die, but I do not care, + For I've lived in the head of a queen!" + + + + +Athabaska Dick + + + +When the boys come out from Lac Labiche in the lure of the early Spring, +To take the pay of the "Hudson's Bay", as their fathers did before, +They are all a-glee for the jamboree, and they make the Landing ring +With a whoop and a whirl, and a "Grab your girl", + and a rip and a skip and a roar. +For the spree of Spring is a sacred thing, and the boys must have their fun; +Packer and tracker and half-breed Cree, from the boat to the bar they leap; +And then when the long flotilla goes, and the last of their pay is done, +The boys from the banks of Lac Labiche swing to the heavy sweep. +And oh, how they sigh! and their throats are dry, + and sorry are they and sick: +Yet there's none so cursed with a lime-kiln thirst as that Athabaska Dick. + +He was long and slim and lean of limb, but strong as a stripling bear; +And by the right of his skill and might he guided the Long Brigade. +All water-wise were his laughing eyes, and he steered with a careless care, +And he shunned the shock of foam and rock, till they came to the Big Cascade. +And here they must make the long portage, and the boys sweat in the sun; +And they heft and pack, and they haul and track, and each must do his trick; +But their thoughts are far in the Landing bar, + where the founts of nectar run: +And no man thinks of such gorgeous drinks as that Athabaska Dick. + +'Twas the close of day and his long boat lay just over the Big Cascade, +When there came to him one Jack-pot Jim, with a wild light in his eye; +And he softly laughed, and he led Dick aft, all eager, yet half afraid, +And snugly stowed in his coat he showed a pilfered flask of "rye". +And in haste he slipped, or in fear he tripped, + but -- Dick in warning roared -- +And there rang a yell, and it befell that Jim was overboard. + +Oh, I heard a splash, and quick as a flash I knew he could not swim. +I saw him whirl in the river swirl, and thresh his arms about. +In a queer, strained way I heard Dick say: "I'm going after him," +Throw off his coat, leap down the boat -- and then I gave a shout: +"Boys, grab him, quick! You're crazy, Dick! Far better one than two! +Hell, man! You know you've got no show! It's sure and certain death. . . ." +And there we hung, and there we clung, with beef and brawn and thew, +And sinews cracked and joints were racked, and panting came our breath; +And there we swayed and there we prayed, till strength and hope were spent -- +Then Dick, he threw us off like rats, and after Jim he went. + +With mighty urge amid the surge of river-rage he leapt, +And gripped his mate and desperate he fought to gain the shore; +With teeth a-gleam he bucked the stream, yet swift and sure he swept +To meet the mighty cataract that waited all a-roar. +And there we stood like carven wood, our faces sickly white, +And watched him as he beat the foam, and inch by inch he lost; +And nearer, nearer drew the fall, and fiercer grew the fight, +Till on the very cascade crest a last farewell he tossed. +Then down and down and down they plunged into that pit of dread; +And mad we tore along the shore to claim our bitter dead. + +And from that hell of frenzied foam, that crashed and fumed and boiled, +Two little bodies bubbled up, and they were heedless then; +And oh, they lay like senseless clay! and bitter hard we toiled, +Yet never, never gleam of hope, and we were weary men. +And moments mounted into hours, and black was our despair; +And faint were we, and we were fain to give them up as dead, +When suddenly I thrilled with hope: "Back, boys! and give him air; +I feel the flutter of his heart. . . ." And, as the word I said, +Dick gave a sigh, and gazed around, and saw our breathless band; +And saw the sky's blue floor above, all strewn with golden fleece; +And saw his comrade Jack-pot Jim, and touched him with his hand: +And then there came into his eyes a look of perfect peace. +And as there, at his very feet, the thwarted river raved, +I heard him murmur low and deep: + "Thank God! the WHISKEY's saved." + + + + +Cheer + + + +It's a mighty good world, so it is, dear lass, + When even the worst is said. +There's a smile and a tear, a sigh and a cheer, + But better be living than dead; +A joy and a pain, a loss and a gain; + There's honey and may be some gall: +Yet still I declare, foul weather or fair, + It's a mighty good world after all. + +For look, lass! at night when I break from the fight, + My Kingdom's awaiting for me; +There's comfort and rest, and the warmth of your breast, + And little ones climbing my knee. +There's fire-light and song -- Oh, the world may be wrong! + Its empires may topple and fall: +My home is my care -- if gladness be there, + It's a mighty good world after all. + +O heart of pure gold! I have made you a fold, + It's sheltered, sun-fondled and warm. +O little ones, rest! I have fashioned a nest; + Sleep on! you are safe from the storm. +For there's no foe like fear, and there's no friend like cheer, + And sunshine will flash at our call; +So crown Love as King, and let us all sing -- + "It's a mighty good world after all." + + + + +The Return + + + +They turned him loose; he bowed his head, + A felon, bent and grey. +His face was even as the Dead, + He had no word to say. + +He sought the home of his old love, + To look on her once more; +And where her roses breathed above, + He cowered beside the door. + +She sat there in the shining room; + Her hair was silver grey. +He stared and stared from out the gloom; + He turned to go away. + +Her roses rustled overhead. + She saw, with sudden start. +"I knew that you would come," she said, + And held him to her heart. + +Her face was rapt and angel-sweet; + She touched his hair of grey; + . . . . . +BUT HE, SOB-SHAKEN, AT HER FEET, + COULD ONLY PRAY AND PRAY. + + + + +The Junior God + + + +The Junior God looked from his place + In the conning towers of heaven, +And he saw the world through the span of space + Like a giant golf-ball driven. +And because he was bored, as some gods are, + With high celestial mirth, +He clutched the reins of a shooting star, + And he steered it down to earth. + +The Junior God, 'mid leaf and bud, + Passed on with a weary air, +Till lo! he came to a pool of mud, + And some hogs were rolling there. +Then in he plunged with gleeful cries, + And down he lay supine; +For they had no mud in paradise, + And they likewise had no swine. + +The Junior God forgot himself; + He squelched mud through his toes; +With the careless joy of a wanton boy + His reckless laughter rose. +Till, tired at last, in a brook close by, + He washed off every stain; +Then softly up to the radiant sky + He rose, a god again. + +The Junior God now heads the roll + In the list of heaven's peers; +He sits in the House of High Control, + And he regulates the spheres. +Yet does he wonder, do you suppose, + If, even in gods divine, +The best and wisest may not be those + Who have wallowed awhile with the swine? + + + + +The Nostomaniac + + + + On the ragged edge of the world I'll roam, + And the home of the wolf shall be my home, + And a bunch of bones on the boundless snows + The end of my trail . . . who knows, who knows! + +I'm dreaming to-night in the fire-glow, alone in my study tower, +My books battalioned around me, my Kipling flat on my knee; +But I'm not in the mood for reading, I haven't moved for an hour; +Body and brain I'm weary, weary the heart of me; +Weary of crushing a longing it's little I understand, +For I thought that my trail was ended, I thought I had earned my rest; +But oh, it's stronger than life is, the call of the hearthless land! +And I turn to the North in my trouble, as a child to the mother-breast. + +Here in my den it's quiet; the sea-wind taps on the pane; +There's comfort and ease and plenty, the smile of the South is sweet. +All that a man might long for, fight for and seek in vain, +Pictures and books and music, pleasure my last retreat. +Peace! I thought I had gained it, I swore that my tale was told; +By my hair that is grey I swore it, by my eyes that are slow to see; +Yet what does it all avail me? to-night, to-night as of old, +Out of the dark I hear it -- the Northland calling to me. + +And I'm daring a rampageous river that runs the devil knows where; +My hand is athrill on the paddle, the birch-bark bounds like a bird. +Hark to the rumble of rapids! Here in my morris chair +Eager and tense I'm straining -- isn't it most absurd? +Now in the churn and the lather, foam that hisses and stings, +Leap I, keyed for the struggle, fury and fume and roar; +Rocks are spitting like hell-cats -- Oh, it's a sport for kings, +Life on a twist of the paddle . . . there's my "Kim" on the floor. + +How I thrill and I vision! Then my camp of a night; +Red and gold of the fire-glow, net afloat in the stream; +Scent of the pines and silence, little "pal" pipe alight, +Body a-purr with pleasure, sleep untroubled of dream: +Banquet of paystreak bacon! moment of joy divine, +When the bannock is hot and gluey, and the teapot's nearing the boil! +Never was wolf so hungry, stomach cleaving to spine. . . . +Ha! there's my servant calling, says that dinner will spoil. + +What do I want with dinner? Can I eat any more? +Can I sleep as I used to? . . . Oh, I abhor this life! +Give me the Great Uncertain, the Barren Land for a floor, +The Milky Way for a roof-beam, splendour and space and strife: +Something to fight and die for -- the limpid Lake of the Bear, +The Empire of Empty Bellies, the dunes where the Dogribs dwell; +Big things, real things, live things . . . here on my morris chair +How I ache for the Northland! "Dinner and servants" -- Hell!! + +Am I too old, I wonder? Can I take one trip more? +Go to the granite-ribbed valleys, flooded with sunset wine, +Peaks that pierce the aurora, rivers I must explore, +Lakes of a thousand islands, millioning hordes of the Pine? +Do they not miss me, I wonder, valley and peak and plain? +Whispering each to the other: "Many a moon has passed . . . +Where has he gone, our lover? Will he come back again? +Star with his fires our tundra, leave us his bones at last?" + +Yes, I'll go back to the Northland, back to the way of the bear, +Back to the muskeg and mountain, back to the ice-leaguered sea. +Old am I! what does it matter? Nothing I would not dare; +Give me a trail to conquer -- Oh, it is "meat" to me! +I will go back to the Northland, feeble and blind and lame; +Sup with the sunny-eyed Husky, eat moose-nose with the Cree; +Play with the Yellow-knife bastards, boasting my blood and my name: +I will go back to the Northland, for the Northland is calling to me. + +Then give to me paddle and whiplash, and give to me tumpline and gun; +Give to me salt and tobacco, flour and a gunny of tea; +Take me up over the Circle, under the flamboyant sun; +Turn me foot-loose like a savage -- that is the finish of me. +I know the trail I am seeking, it's up by the Lake of the Bear; +It's down by the Arctic Barrens, it's over to Hudson's Bay; +Maybe I'll get there, -- maybe: death is set by a hair. . . . +Hark! it's the Northland calling! now must I go away. . . . + + Go to the Wild that waits for me; + Go where the moose and the musk-ox be; + Go to the wolf and the secret snows; + Go to my fate . . . who knows, who knows! + + + + +Ambition + + + +They brought the mighty chief to town; +They showed him strange, unwonted sights; +Yet as he wandered up and down, +He seemed to scorn their vain delights. +His face was grim, his eye lacked fire, +As one who mourns a glory dead; +And when they sought his heart's desire: +"Me like'um tooth same gold," he said. + +A dental place they quickly found. +He neither moaned nor moved his head. +They pulled his teeth so white and sound; +They put in teeth of gold instead. +Oh, never saw I man so gay! +His very being seemed to swell: +"Ha! ha!" he cried, "Now Injun say +Me heap big chief, ME LOOK LIKE HELL." + + + + +To Sunnydale + + + +There lies the trail to Sunnydale, +Amid the lure of laughter. +Oh, how can we unhappy be +Beneath its leafy rafter! +Each perfect hour is like a flower, +Each day is like a posy. +How can you say the skies are grey? +You're wrong, my friend, they're rosy. + +With right good will let's climb the hill, +And leave behind all sorrow. +Oh, we'll be gay! a bright to-day +Will make a bright to-morrow. +Oh, we'll be strong! the way is long +That never has a turning; +The hill is high, but there's the sky, +And how the West is burning! + +And if through chance of circumstance +We have to go bare-foot, sir, +We'll not repine -- a friend of mine +Has got no feet to boot, sir. +This Happiness a habit is, +And Life is what we make it: +See! there's the trail to Sunnydale! +Up, friend! and let us take it. + + + + +The Blind and the Dead + + + +She lay like a saint on her copper couch; + Like an angel asleep she lay, +In the stare of the ghoulish folks that slouch + Past the Dead and sneak away. + +Then came old Jules of the sightless gaze, + Who begged in the streets for bread. +Each day he had come for a year of days, + And groped his way to the Dead. + +"What's the Devil's Harvest to-day?" he cried; + "A wanton with eyes of blue! +I've known too many a such," he sighed; + "Maybe I know this . . . mon Dieu!" + +He raised the head of the heedless Dead; + He fingered the frozen face. . . . +Then a deathly spell on the watchers fell -- + God! it was still, that place! + +He raised the head of the careless Dead; + He fumbled a vagrant curl; +And then with his sightless smile he said: + "It's only my little girl." + +"Dear, my dear, did they hurt you so! + Come to your daddy's heart. . . ." +Aye, and he held so tight, you know, + They were hard to force apart. + +No! Paris isn't always gay; + And the morgue has its stories too: +You are a writer of tales, you say -- + Then there is a tale for you. + + + + +The Atavist + + + +What are you doing here, Tom Thorne, on the white top-knot o' the world, +Where the wind has the cut of a naked knife and the stars are rapier keen? +Hugging a smudgy willow fire, deep in a lynx robe curled, +You that's a lord's own son, Tom Thorne -- what does your madness mean? + +Go home, go home to your clubs, Tom Thorne! home to your evening dress! +Home to your place of power and pride, and the feast that waits for you! +Why do you linger all alone in the splendid emptiness, +Scouring the Land of the Little Sticks on the trail of the caribou? + +Why did you fall off the Earth, Tom Thorne, out of our social ken? +What did your deep damnation prove? What was your dark despair? +Oh with the width of a world between, and years to the count of ten, +If they cut out your heart to-night, Tom Thorne, + HER name would be graven there! + +And you fled afar for the thing called Peace, + and you thought you would find it here, +In the purple tundras vastly spread, and the mountains whitely piled; +It's a weary quest and a dreary quest, but I think that the end is near; +For they say that the Lord has hidden it in the secret heart of the Wild. + +And you know that heart as few men know, and your eyes are fey and deep, +With a "something lost" come welling back from the raw, red dawn of life: +With woe and pain have you greatly lain, till out of abysmal sleep +The soul of the Stone Age leaps in you, alert for the ancient strife. + +And if you came to our feast again, with its pomp and glee and glow, +I think you would sit stone-still, Tom Thorne, and see in a daze of dream, +A mad sun goading to frenzied flame the glittering gems of the snow, +And a monster musk-ox bulking black against the blood-red gleam. + +I think you would see berg-battling shores, and stammer and halt and stare, +With a sudden sense of the frozen void, serene and vast and still; +And the aching gleam and the hush of dream, + and the track of a great white bear, +And the primal lust that surged in you as you sprang to make your kill. + +I think you would hear the bull-moose call, and the glutted river roar; +And spy the hosts of the caribou shadow the shining plain; +And feel the pulse of the Silences, and stand elate once more +On the verge of the yawning vastitudes that call to you in vain. + +For I think you are one with the stars and the sun, + and the wind and the wave and the dew; +And the peaks untrod that yearn to God, and the valleys undefiled; +Men soar with wings, and they bridle kings, but what is it all to you, +Wise in the ways of the wilderness, and strong with the strength of the Wild? + +You have spent your life, you have waged your strife + where never we play a part; +You have held the throne of the Great Unknown, you have ruled a kingdom vast: + . . . . . +BUT TO-NIGHT THERE'S A STRANGE, NEW TRAIL FOR YOU, AND YOU GO, O WEARY HEART! +TO THE PEACE AND REST OF THE GREAT UNGUESSED . . . + AT LAST, TOM THORNE, AT LAST. + + + + +The Sceptic + + + +My Father Christmas passed away +When I was barely seven. +At twenty-one, alack-a-day, +I lost my hope of heaven. + +Yet not in either lies the curse: +The hell of it's because +I don't know which loss hurt the worse -- +My God or Santa Claus. + + + + +The Rover + + + + I + +Oh, how good it is to be +Foot-loose and heart-free! +Just my dog and pipe and I, underneath the vast sky; +Trail to try and goal to win, white road and cool inn; +Fields to lure a lad afar, clear spring and still star; +Lilting feet that never tire, green dingle, fagot fire; +None to hurry, none to hold, heather hill and hushed fold; +Nature like a picture book, laughing leaf and bright brook; +Every day a jewel bright, set serenely in the night; +Every night a holy shrine, radiant for a day divine. + +Weathered cheek and kindly eye, let the wanderer go by. +Woman-love and wistful heart, let the gipsy one depart. +For the farness and the road are his glory and his goad. +Oh, the lilt of youth and Spring! Eyes laugh and lips sing. + Yea, but it is good to be + Foot-loose and heart-free! + + + II + +Yet how good it is to come +Home at last, home, home! +On the clover swings the bee, overhead's the hale tree; +Sky of turquoise gleams through, yonder glints the lake's blue. +In a hammock let's swing, weary of wandering; +Tired of wild, uncertain lands, strange faces, faint hands. + +Has the wondrous world gone cold? Am I growing old, old? +Grey and weary . . . let me dream, glide on the tranquil stream. +Oh, what joyous days I've had, full, fervid, gay, glad! +Yet there comes a subtile change, let the stripling rove, range. +From sweet roving comes sweet rest, after all, home's best. +And if there's a little bit of woman-love with it, +I will count my life content, God-blest and well spent. . . . + Oh but it is good to be + Foot-loose and heart-free! + Yet how good it is to come + Home at last, home, home! + + + + +Barb-Wire Bill + + + +At dawn of day the white land lay all gruesome-like and grim, +When Bill Mc'Gee he says to me: "We've GOT to do it, Jim. +We've got to make Fort Liard quick. I know the river's bad, +But, oh! the little woman's sick . . . why! don't you savvy, lad?" +And me! Well, yes, I must confess it wasn't hard to see +Their little family group of two would soon be one of three. +And so I answered, careless-like: "Why, Bill! you don't suppose +I'm scared of that there `babbling brook'? Whatever you say -- goes." + +A real live man was Barb-wire Bill, with insides copper-lined; +For "barb-wire" was the brand of "hooch" to which he most inclined. +They knew him far; his igloos are on Kittiegazuit strand. +They knew him well, the tribes who dwell within the Barren Land. +From Koyokuk to Kuskoquim his fame was everywhere; +And he did love, all life above, that little Julie Claire, +The lithe, white slave-girl he had bought for seven hundred skins, +And taken to his wickiup to make his moccasins. + +We crawled down to the river bank and feeble folk were we, +That Julie Claire from God-knows-where, and Barb-wire Bill and me. +From shore to shore we heard the roar the heaving ice-floes make, +And loud we laughed, and launched our raft, and followed in their wake. +The river swept and seethed and leapt, and caught us in its stride; +And on we hurled amid a world that crashed on every side. +With sullen din the banks caved in; the shore-ice lanced the stream; +The naked floes like spooks arose, all jiggling and agleam. +Black anchor-ice of strange device shot upward from its bed, +As night and day we cleft our way, and arrow-like we sped. + +But "Faster still!" cried Barb-wire Bill, and looked the live-long day +In dull despair at Julie Claire, as white like death she lay. +And sometimes he would seem to pray and sometimes seem to curse, +And bent above, with eyes of love, yet ever she grew worse. +And as we plunged and leapt and lunged, her face was plucked with pain, +And I could feel his nerves of steel a-quiver at the strain. +And in the night he gripped me tight as I lay fast asleep: +"The river's kicking like a steer . . . run out the forward sweep! +That's Hell-gate Canyon right ahead; I know of old its roar, +And . . . I'll be damned! THE ICE IS JAMMED! We've GOT to make the shore." + +With one wild leap I gripped the sweep. The night was black as sin. +The float-ice crashed and ripped and smashed, and stunned us with its din. +And near and near, and clear and clear I heard the canyon boom; +And swift and strong we swept along to meet our awful doom. +And as with dread I glimpsed ahead the death that waited there, +My only thought was of the girl, the little Julie Claire; +And so, like demon mad with fear, I panted at the oar, +And foot by foot, and inch by inch, we worked the raft ashore. + +The bank was staked with grinding ice, and as we scraped and crashed, +I only knew one thing to do, and through my mind it flashed: +Yet while I groped to find the rope, I heard Bill's savage cry: +"That's my job, lad! It's me that jumps. I'll snub this raft or die!" +I saw him leap, I saw him creep, I saw him gain the land; +I saw him crawl, I saw him fall, then run with rope in hand. +And then the darkness gulped him up, and down we dashed once more, +And nearer, nearer drew the jam, and thunder-like its roar. + +Oh God! all's lost . . . from Julie Claire there came a wail of pain, +And then -- the rope grew sudden taut, and quivered at the strain; +It slacked and slipped, it whined and gripped, and oh, I held my breath! +And there we hung and there we swung right in the jaws of death. + +A little strand of hempen rope, and how I watched it there, +With all around a hell of sound, and darkness and despair; +A little strand of hempen rope, I watched it all alone, +And somewhere in the dark behind I heard a woman moan; +And somewhere in the dark ahead I heard a man cry out, +Then silence, silence, silence fell, and mocked my hollow shout. +And yet once more from out the shore I heard that cry of pain, +A moan of mortal agony, then all was still again. + +That night was hell with all the frills, and when the dawn broke dim, +I saw a lean and level land, but never sign of him. +I saw a flat and frozen shore of hideous device, +I saw a long-drawn strand of rope that vanished through the ice. +And on that treeless, rockless shore I found my partner -- dead. +No place was there to snub the raft, so -- HE HAD SERVED INSTEAD; +And with the rope lashed round his waist, in last defiant fight, +He'd thrown himself beneath the ice, that closed and gripped him tight; +And there he'd held us back from death, as fast in death he lay. . . . +Say, boys! I'm not the pious brand, but -- I just tried to pray. +And then I looked to Julie Claire, and sore abashed was I, +For from the robes that covered her, I -- HEARD -- A -- BABY -- CRY. . . . + +Thus was Love conqueror of death, and life for life was given; +And though no saint on earth, d'ye think -- + Bill's squared hisself with Heaven? + + + + +"?" + + + +If you had the choice of two women to wed, +(Though of course the idea is quite absurd) +And the first from her heels to her dainty head +Was charming in every sense of the word: +And yet in the past (I grieve to state), +She never had been exactly "straight". + +And the second -- she was beyond all cavil, +A model of virtue, I must confess; +And yet, alas! she was dull as the devil, +And rather a dowd in the way of dress; +Though what she was lacking in wit and beauty, +She more than made up for in "sense of duty". + +Now, suppose you must wed, and make no blunder, +And either would love you, and let you win her -- +Which of the two would you choose, I wonder, +The stolid saint or the sparkling sinner? + + + + +Just Think! + + + +Just think! some night the stars will gleam + Upon a cold, grey stone, +And trace a name with silver beam, + And lo! 'twill be your own. + +That night is speeding on to greet + Your epitaphic rhyme. +Your life is but a little beat + Within the heart of Time. + +A little gain, a little pain, + A laugh, lest you may moan; +A little blame, a little fame, + A star-gleam on a stone. + + + + +The Lunger + + + +Jack would laugh an' joke all day; +Never saw a lad so gay; +Singin' like a medder lark, +Loaded to the Plimsoll mark +With God's sunshine was that boy; +Had a strangle-holt on Joy. +Held his head 'way up in air, +Left no callin' cards on Care; +Breezy, buoyant, brave and true; +Sent his sunshine out to you; +Cheerfulest when clouds was black -- + Happy Jack! Oh, Happy Jack! + +Sittin' in my shack alone +I could hear him in his own, +Singin' far into the night, +Till it didn't seem just right +One man should corral the fun, +Live his life so in the sun; +Didn't seem quite natural +Not to have a grouch at all; +Not a trouble, not a lack -- + Happy Jack! Oh, Happy Jack! + +He was plumbful of good cheer +Till he struck that low-down year; +Got so thin, so little to him, +You could most see day-light through him. +Never was his eye so bright, +Never was his cheek so white. +Seemed as if somethin' was wrong, +Sort o' quaver in his song. +Same old smile, same hearty voice: +"Bless you, boys! let's all rejoice!" +But old Doctor shook his head: +"Half a lung," was all he said. +Yet that half was surely right, +For I heard him every night, +Singin', singin' in his shack -- + Happy Jack! Oh, Happy Jack! + +Then one day a letter came +Endin' with a female name; +Seemed to get him in the neck, +Sort o' pile-driver effect; +Paled his lip and plucked his breath, +Left him starin' still as death. +Somethin' had gone awful wrong, +Yet that night he sang his song. +Oh, but it was good to hear! +For there clutched my heart a fear, +So that I quaked listenin' +Every night to hear him sing. +But each day he laughed with me, +An' his smile was full of glee. +Nothin' seemed to set him back -- + Happy Jack! Oh, Happy Jack! + +Then one night the singin' stopped . . . +Seemed as if my heart just flopped; +For I'd learned to love the boy +With his gilt-edged line of joy, +With his glorious gift of bluff, +With his splendid fightin' stuff. +Sing on, lad, and play the game! +O dear God! . . . no singin' came, +But there surged to me instead -- +Silence, silence, deep and dread; +Till I shuddered, tried to pray, +Said: "He's maybe gone away." + +Oh, yes, he had gone away, +Gone forever and a day. +But he'd left behind him there, +In his cabin, pinched and bare, +His poor body, skin and bone, +His sharp face, cold as a stone. +An' his stiffened fingers pressed +Somethin' bright upon his breast: +Locket with a silken curl, +Poor, sweet portrait of a girl. +Yet I reckon at the last +How defiant-like he passed; +For there sat upon his lips +Smile that death could not eclipse; +An' within his eyes lived still +Joy that dyin' could not kill. + +An' now when the nights are long, +How I miss his cheery song! +How I sigh an' wish him back! + Happy Jack! Oh, Happy Jack! + + + + +The Mountain and the Lake + + + +I know a mountain thrilling to the stars, +Peerless and pure, and pinnacled with snow; +Glimpsing the golden dawn o'er coral bars, +Flaunting the vanisht sunset's garnet glow; +Proudly patrician, passionless, serene; +Soaring in silvered steeps where cloud-surfs break; +Virgin and vestal -- Oh, a very Queen! +And at her feet there dreams a quiet lake. + +My lake adores my mountain -- well I know, +For I have watched it from its dawn-dream start, +Stilling its mirror to her splendid snow, +Framing her image in its trembling heart; +Glassing her graciousness of greening wood, +Kissing her throne, melodiously mad, +Thrilling responsive to her every mood, +Gloomed with her sadness, gay when she is glad. + +My lake has dreamed and loved since time was born; +Will love and dream till time shall cease to be; +Gazing to Her in worship half forlorn, +Who looks towards the stars and will not see -- +My peerless mountain, splendid in her scorn. . . . +Alas! poor little lake! Alas! poor me! + + + + +The Headliner and the Breadliner + + + +Moko, the Educated Ape is here, + The pet of vaudeville, so the posters say, + And every night the gaping people pay +To see him in his panoply appear; +To see him pad his paunch with dainty cheer, + Puff his perfecto, swill champagne, and sway + Just like a gentleman, yet all in play, +Then bow himself off stage with brutish leer. + +And as to-night, with noble knowledge crammed, + I 'mid this human compost take my place, +I, once a poet, now so dead and damned, + The woeful tears half freezing on my face: +"O God!" I cry, "let me but take his shape, + Moko's, the Blest, the Educated Ape." + + + + +Death in the Arctic + + + + I + +I took the clock down from the shelf; +"At eight," said I, "I shoot myself." +It lacked a MINUTE of the hour, +And as I waited all a-cower, +A skinful of black, boding pain, +Bits of my life came back again. . . . + + "Mother, there's nothing more to eat -- + Why don't you go out on the street? + Always you sit and cry and cry; + Here at my play I wonder why. + Mother, when you dress up at night, + Red are your cheeks, your eyes are bright; + Twining a ribband in your hair, + Kissing good-bye you go down-stair. + Then I'm as lonely as can be. + Oh, how I wish you were with me! + Yet when you go out on the street, + Mother, there's always lots to eat. . . ." + + + II + +For days the igloo has been dark; +But now the rag wick sends a spark +That glitters in the icy air, +And wakes frost sapphires everywhere; +Bright, bitter flames, that adder-like +Dart here and there, yet fear to strike +The gruesome gloom wherein THEY lie, +My comrades, oh, so keen to die! +And I, the last -- well, here I wait +The clock to strike the hour of eight. . . . + + "Boy, it is bitter to be hurled + Nameless and naked on the world; + Frozen by night and starved by day, + Curses and kicks and clouts your pay. + But you must fight! Boy, look on me! + Anarch of all earth-misery; + Beggar and tramp and shameless sot; + Emblem of ill, in rags that rot. + Would you be foul and base as I? + Oh, it is better far to die! + Swear to me now you'll fight and fight, + Boy, or I'll kill you here to-night. . . ." + + + III + +Curse this silence soft and black! +Sting, little light, the shadows back! +Dance, little flame, with freakish glee! +Twinkle with brilliant mockery! +Glitter on ice-robed roof and floor! +Jewel the bear-skin of the door! +Gleam in my beard, illume my breath, +Blanch the clock face that times my death! +But do not pierce that murk so deep, +Where in their sleeping-bags they sleep! +But do not linger where they lie, +They who had all the luck to die! . . . + + "There is nothing more to say; + Let us part and go our way. + Since it seems we can't agree, + I will go across the sea. + Proud of heart and strong am I; + Not for woman will I sigh; + Hold my head up gay and glad: + You can find another lad. . . ." + + + IV + +Above the igloo piteous flies +Our frayed flag to the frozen skies. +Oh, would you know how earth can be +A hell -- go north of Eighty-three! +Go, scan the snows day after day, +And hope for help, and pray and pray; +Have seal-hide and sea-lice to eat; +Melt water with your body's heat; +Sleep all the fell, black winter through +Beside the dear, dead men you knew. +(The walrus blubber flares and gleams -- +O God! how long a minute seems!) . . . + + "Mary, many a day has passed, + Since that morn of hot-head youth. + Come I back at last, at last, + Crushed with knowing of the truth; + How through bitter, barren years + You loved me, and me alone; + Waited, wearied, wept your tears -- + Oh, could I atone, atone, + I would pay a million-fold! + Pay you for the love you gave. + Mary, look down as of old -- + I am kneeling by your grave." . . . + + + V + +Olaf, the Blonde, was first to go; +Bitten his eyes were by the snow; +Sightless and sealed his eyes of blue, +So that he died before I knew. +Here in those poor weak arms he died: +"Wolves will not get you, lad," I lied; +"For I will watch till Spring come round; +Slumber you shall beneath the ground." +Oh, how I lied! I scarce can wait: +Strike, little clock, the hour of eight! . . . + + "Comrade, can you blame me quite? + The horror of the long, long night + Is on me, and I've borne with pain + So long, and hoped for help in vain. + So frail am I, and blind and dazed; + With scurvy sick, with silence crazed. + Beneath the Arctic's heel of hate, + Avid for Death I wait, I wait. + Oh if I falter, fail to fight, + Can you, dear comrade, blame me quite?" . . . + + + VI + +Big Eric gave up months ago. +But seldom do men suffer so. +His feet sloughed off, his fingers died, +His hands shrunk up and mummified. +I had to feed him like a child; +Yet he was valiant, joked and smiled, +Talked of his wife and little one +(Thanks be to God that I have none), +Passed in the night without a moan, +Passed, and I'm here, alone, alone. . . . + + "I've got to kill you, Dick. + Your life for mine, you know. + Better to do it quick, + A swift and sudden blow. + See! here's my hand to lick; + A hug before you go -- + God! but it makes me sick: + Old dog, I love you so. + Forgive, forgive me, Dick -- + A swift and sudden blow. . . ." + + + VII + +Often I start up in the dark, +Thinking the sound of bells to hear. +Often I wake from sleep: "Oh, hark! +Help . . . it is coming . . . near and near." +Blindly I reel toward the door; +There the snow billows bleak and bare; +Blindly I seek my den once more, +Silence and darkness and despair. +Oh, it is all a dreadful dream! +Scurvy and cold and death and dearth; +I will awake to warmth and gleam, +Silvery seas and greening earth. +Life is a dream, its wakening, +Death, gentle shadow of God's wing. . . . + + "Tick, little clock, my life away! + Even a second seems a day. + Even a minute seems a year, + Peopled with ghosts, that press and peer + Into my face so charnel white, + Lit by the devilish, dancing light. + Tick, little clock! mete out my fate: + Tortured and tense I wait, I wait. . . ." + + + VIII + +Oh, I have sworn! the hour is nigh: +When it strikes eight, I die, I die. +Raise up the gun -- it stings my brow -- +When it strikes eight . . . all ready . . . NOW -- + + * * * * * + +Down from my hand the weapon dropped; +Wildly I stared. . . . + THE CLOCK HAD STOPPED. + + + IX + +Phantoms and fears and ghosts have gone. +Peace seems to nestle in my brain. +Lo! the clock stopped, I'm living on; +Heart-sick I was, and less than sane. +Yet do I scorn the thing I planned, +Hearing a voice: "O coward, fight!" +Then the clock stopped . . . whose was the hand? +Maybe 'twas God's -- ah well, all's right. +Heap on me darkness, fold on fold! +Pain! wrench and rack me! What care I? +Leap on me, hunger, thirst and cold! +I will await my time to die; +Looking to Heaven that shines above; +Looking to God, and love . . . and love. + + + X + +Hark! what is that? Bells, dogs again! +Is it a dream? I sob and cry. +See! the door opens, fur-clad men +Rush to my rescue; frail am I; +Feeble and dying, dazed and glad. +There is the pistol where it dropped. +"Boys, it was hard -- but I'm not mad. . . . +Look at the clock -- it stopped, it stopped. +Carry me out. The heavens smile. +See! there's an arch of gold above. +Now, let me rest a little while -- +LOOKING TO GOD AND LOVE . . . AND LOVE. . . ." + + + + +Dreams Are Best + + + +I just think that dreams are best, + Just to sit and fancy things; + Give your gold no acid test, +Try not how your silver rings; +Fancy women pure and good, + Fancy men upright and true: + Fortressed in your solitude, +Let Life be a dream to you. + +For I think that Thought is all; + Truth's a minion of the mind; + Love's ideal comes at call; +As ye seek so shall ye find. +But ye must not seek too far; + Things are never what they seem: + Let a star be just a star, +And a woman -- just a dream. + +O you Dreamers, proud and pure, + You have gleaned the sweet of life! + Golden truths that shall endure +Over pain and doubt and strife. +I would rather be a fool + Living in my Paradise, + Than the leader of a school, +Sadly sane and weary wise. + +O you Cynics with your sneers, + Fallen brains and hearts of brass, + Tweak me by my foolish ears, +Write me down a simple ass! +I'll believe the real "you" + Is the "you" without a taint; + I'll believe each woman too, +But a slightly damaged saint. + +Yes, I'll smoke my cigarette, + Vestured in my garb of dreams, + And I'll borrow no regret; +All is gold that golden gleams. +So I'll charm my solitude + With the faith that Life is blest, + Brave and noble, bright and good, . . . +Oh, I think that dreams are best! + + + + +The Quitter + + + +When you're lost in the Wild, and you're scared as a child, + And Death looks you bang in the eye, +And you're sore as a boil, it's according to Hoyle + To cock your revolver and . . . die. +But the Code of a Man says: "Fight all you can," + And self-dissolution is barred. +In hunger and woe, oh, it's easy to blow . . . + It's the hell-served-for-breakfast that's hard. + +"You're sick of the game!" Well, now, that's a shame. + You're young and you're brave and you're bright. +"You've had a raw deal!" I know -- but don't squeal, + Buck up, do your damnedest, and fight. +It's the plugging away that will win you the day, + So don't be a piker, old pard! +Just draw on your grit; it's so easy to quit: + It's the keeping-your-chin-up that's hard. + +It's easy to cry that you're beaten -- and die; + It's easy to crawfish and crawl; +But to fight and to fight when hope's out of sight -- + Why, that's the best game of them all! +And though you come out of each gruelling bout, + All broken and beaten and scarred, +Just have one more try -- it's dead easy to die, + It's the keeping-on-living that's hard. + + + + +The Cow-Juice Cure + + + +The clover was in blossom, an' the year was at the June, +When Flap-jack Billy hit the town, likewise O'Flynn's saloon. +The frost was on the fodder an' the wind was growin' keen, +When Billy got to seein' snakes in Sullivan's shebeen. + +Then in meandered Deep-hole Dan, once comrade of the cup: +"Oh Billy, for the love of Mike, why don't ye sober up? +I've got the gorgus recipay, 'tis smooth an' slick as silk -- +Jest quit yer strangle-holt on hooch, an' irrigate with milk. +Lackteeal flooid is the lubrication you require; +Yer nervus frame-up's like a bunch of snarled piano wire. +You want to get it coated up with addypose tishoo, +So's it will work elastic-like, an' milk's the dope for you." + +Well, Billy was complyable, an' in a month it's strange, +That cow-juice seemed to oppyrate a most amazin' change. +"Call up the water-wagon, Dan, an' book my seat," sez he. +"'Tis mighty queer," sez Deep-hole Dan, "'twas just the same with me." +They shanghaied little Tim O'Shane, they cached him safe away, +An' though he objurgated some, they "cured" him night an' day; +An' pretty soon there came the change amazin' to explain: +"I'll never take another drink," sez Timothy O'Shane. +They tried it out on Spike Muldoon, that toper of renown; +They put it over Grouch McGraw, the terror of the town. +They roped in "tanks" from far and near, an' every test was sure, +An' like a flame there ran the fame of Deep-hole's Cow-juice Cure. + +"It's mighty queer," sez Deep-hole Dan, "I'm puzzled through and through; +It's only milk from Riley's ranch, no other milk will do." +An' it jest happened on that night with no predictive plan, +He left some milk from Riley's ranch a-settin' in a pan; +An' picture his amazement when he poured that milk next day -- +There in the bottom of the pan a dozen "colours" lay. + +"Well, what d'ye know 'bout that," sez Dan; "Gosh ding my dasted eyes, +We've been an' had the Gold Cure, Bill, an' none of us was wise. +The milk's free-millin' that's a cinch; there's colours everywhere. +Now, let us figger this thing out -- how does the dust git there? +`Gold from the grass-roots down', they say -- why, Bill! we've got it cold -- +Them cows what nibbles up the grass, jest nibbles up the gold. +We're blasted, bloomin' millionaires; dissemble an' lie low: +We'll follow them gold-bearin' cows, an' prospect where they go." + +An' so it came to pass, fer weeks them miners might be found +A-sneakin' round on Riley's ranch, an' snipin' at the ground; +Till even Riley stops an' stares, an' presently allows: +"Them boys appear to take a mighty interest in cows." +An' night an' day they shadowed each auriferous bovine, +An' panned the grass-roots on their trail, yet nivver gold they seen. +An' all that season, secret-like, they worked an' nothin' found; +An' there was colours in the milk, but none was in the ground. +An' mighty desperate was they, an' down upon their luck, +When sudden, inspirationlike, the source of it they struck. +An' where d'ye think they traced it to? it grieves my heart to tell -- +In the black sand at the bottom of that wicked milkman's WELL. + + + + +While the Bannock Bakes + + + +Light up your pipe again, old chum, and sit awhile with me; +I've got to watch the bannock bake -- how restful is the air! +You'd little think that we were somewhere north of Sixty-three, +Though where I don't exactly know, and don't precisely care. +The man-size mountains palisade us round on every side; +The river is a-flop with fish, and ripples silver-clear; +The midnight sunshine brims yon cleft -- we think it's the Divide; +We'll get there in a month, maybe, or maybe in a year. + +It doesn't matter, does it, pal? We're of that breed of men +With whom the world of wine and cards and women disagree; +Your trouble was a roofless game of poker now and then, +And "raising up my elbow", that's what got away with me. +We're merely "Undesirables", artistic more or less; +My horny hands are Chopin-wise; you quote your Browning well; +And yet we're fooling round for gold in this damned wilderness: +The joke is, if we found it, we would both go straight to hell. + +Well, maybe we won't find it -- and at least we've got the "life". +We're both as brown as berries, and could wrestle with a bear: +(That bannock's raising nicely, pal; just jab it with your knife.) +Fine specimens of manhood they would reckon us out there. +It's the tracking and the packing and the poling in the sun; +It's the sleeping in the open, it's the rugged, unfaked food; +It's the snow-shoe and the paddle, and the campfire and the gun, +And when I think of what I was, I know that it is good. + +Just think of how we've poled all day up this strange little stream; +Since life began no eye of man has seen this place before; +How fearless all the wild things are! the banks with goose-grass gleam, +And there's a bronzy musk-rat sitting sniffing at his door. +A mother duck with brood of ten comes squattering along; +The tawny, white-winged ptarmigan are flying all about; +And in that swirly, golden pool, a restless, gleaming throng, +The trout are waiting till we condescend to take them out. + +Ah, yes, it's good! I'll bet that there's no doctor like the Wild: +(Just turn that bannock over there; it's getting nicely brown.) +I might be in my grave by now, forgotten and reviled, +Or rotting like a sickly cur in some far, foreign town. +I might be that vile thing I was, -- it all seems like a dream; +I owed a man a grudge one time that only life could pay; +And yet it's half-forgotten now -- how petty these things seem! +(But that's "another story", pal; I'll tell it you some day.) + +How strange two "irresponsibles" should chum away up here! +But round the Arctic Circle friends are few and far between. +We've shared the same camp-fire and tent for nigh on seven year, +And never had a word that wasn't cheering and serene. +We've halved the toil and split the spoil, and borne each other's packs; +By all the Wild's freemasonry we're brothers, tried and true; +We've swept on danger side by side, and fought it back to back, +And you would die for me, old pal, and I would die for you. + +Now there was that time I got lost in Rory Bory Land, +(How quick the blizzards sweep on one across that Polar sea!) +You formed a rescue crew of One, and saw a frozen hand +That stuck out of a drift of snow -- and, partner, it was Me. +But I got even, did I not, that day the paddle broke? +White water on the Coppermine -- a rock -- a split canoe -- +Two fellows struggling in the foam (one couldn't swim a stroke): +A half-drowned man I dragged ashore . . . and partner, it was You. + + * * * * * + +In Rory Borealis Land the winter's long and black. +The silence seems a solid thing, shot through with wolfish woe; +And rowelled by the eager stars the skies vault vastly back, +And man seems but a little mite on that weird-lit plateau. +No thing to do but smoke and yarn of wild and misspent lives, +Beside the camp-fire there we sat -- what tales you told to me +Of love and hate, and chance and fate, and temporary wives! +In Rory Borealis Land, beside the Arctic Sea. + +One yarn you told me in those days I can remember still; +It seemed as if I visioned it, so sharp you sketched it in; +Bellona was the name, I think; a coast town in Brazil, +Where nobody did anything but serenade and sin. +I saw it all -- the jewelled sea, the golden scythe of sand, +The stately pillars of the palms, the feathery bamboo, +The red-roofed houses and the swart, sun-dominated land, +The people ever children, and the heavens ever blue. + +You told me of that girl of yours, that blossom of old Spain, +All glamour, grace and witchery, all passion, verve and glow. +How maddening she must have been! You made me see her plain, +There by our little camp-fire, in the silence and the snow. +You loved her and she loved you. She'd a husband, too, I think, +A doctor chap, you told me, whom she treated like a dog, +A white man living on the beach, a hopeless slave to drink -- +(Just turn that bannock over there, that's propped against the log.) + +That story seemed to strike me, pal -- it happens every day: +You had to go away awhile, then somehow it befell +The doctor chap discovered, gave her up, and disappeared; +You came back, tired of her in time . . . there's nothing more to tell. +Hist! see those willows silvering where swamp and river meet! +Just reach me up my rifle quick; that's Mister Moose, I know -- +There now, I'VE GOT HIM DEAD TO RIGHTS . . . but hell! we've lots to eat +I don't believe in taking life -- we'll let the beggar go. + +Heigh ho! I'm tired; the bannock's cooked; it's time we both turned in. +The morning mist is coral-kissed, the morning sky is gold. +The camp-fire's a confessional -- what funny yarns we spin! +It sort of made me think a bit, that story that you told. +The fig-leaf belt and Rory Bory are such odd extremes, +Yet after all how very small this old world seems to be . . . +Yes, that was quite a yarn, old pal, and yet to me it seems +You missed the point: the point is that + the "doctor chap" . . . was ME. . . . + + + + +The Lost Master + + + +"And when I come to die," he said, +"Ye shall not lay me out in state, +Nor leave your laurels at my head, +Nor cause your men of speech orate; +No monument your gift shall be, +No column in the Hall of Fame; +But just this line ye grave for me: + `He played the game.'" + +So when his glorious task was done, +It was not of his fame we thought; +It was not of his battles won, +But of the pride with which he fought; +But of his zest, his ringing laugh, +His trenchant scorn of praise or blame: +And so we graved his epitaph, + "He played the game." + +And so we, too, in humbler ways +Went forth to fight the fight anew, +And heeding neither blame nor praise, +We held the course he set us true. +And we, too, find the fighting sweet; +And we, too, fight for fighting's sake; +And though we go down in defeat, +And though our stormy hearts may break, +We will not do our Master shame: +We'll play the game, please God, + We'll play the game. + + + + +Little Moccasins + + + +Come out, O Little Moccasins, and frolic on the snow! +Come out, O tiny beaded feet, and twinkle in the light! +I'll play the old Red River reel, you used to love it so: +Awake, O Little Moccasins, and dance for me to-night! + +Your hair was all a gleamy gold, your eyes a corn-flower blue; +Your cheeks were pink as tinted shells, you stepped light as a fawn; +Your mouth was like a coral bud, with seed pearls peeping through; +As gladdening as Spring you were, as radiant as dawn. + +Come out, O Little Moccasins! I'll play so soft and low, +The songs you loved, the old heart-songs that in my mem'ry ring; +O child, I want to hear you now beside the campfire glow! +With all your heart a-throbbing in the simple words you sing. + +For there was only you and I, and you were all to me; +And round us were the barren lands, but little did we fear; +Of all God's happy, happy folks the happiest were we. . . . +(Oh, call her, poor old fiddle mine, and maybe she will hear!) + +Your mother was a half-breed Cree, but you were white all through; +And I, your father was -- but well, that's neither here nor there; +I only know, my little Queen, that all my world was you, +And now that world can end to-night, and I will never care. + +For there's a tiny wooden cross that pricks up through the snow: +(Poor Little Moccasins! you're tired, and so you lie at rest.) +And there's a grey-haired, weary man beside the campfire glow: +(O fiddle mine! the tears to-night are drumming on your breast.) + + + + +The Wanderlust + + + +The Wanderlust has lured me to the seven lonely seas, +Has dumped me on the tailing-piles of dearth; +The Wanderlust has haled me from the morris chairs of ease, +Has hurled me to the ends of all the earth. +How bitterly I've cursed it, oh, the Painted Desert knows, +The wraithlike heights that hug the pallid plain, +The all-but-fluid silence, -- yet the longing grows and grows, +And I've got to glut the Wanderlust again. + + Soldier, sailor, in what a plight I've been! + Tinker, tailor, oh what a sight I've seen! + And I'm hitting the trail in the morning, boys, + And you won't see my heels for dust; + For it's "all day" with you + When you answer the cue + Of the Wan-der-lust. + +The Wanderlust has got me . . . by the belly-aching fire, +By the fever and the freezing and the pain; +By the darkness that just drowns you, by the wail of home desire, +I've tried to break the spell of it -- in vain. +Life might have been a feast for me, now there are only crumbs; +In rags and tatters, beggar-wise I sit; +Yet there's no rest or peace for me, imperious it drums, +The Wanderlust, and I must follow it. + + Highway, by-way, many a mile I've done; + Rare way, fair way, many a height I've won; + But I'm pulling my freight in the morning, boys, + And it's over the hills or bust; + For there's never a cure + When you list to the lure + Of the Wan-der-lust. + +The Wanderlust has taught me . . . it has whispered to my heart +Things all you stay-at-homes will never know. +The white man and the savage are but three short days apart, +Three days of cursing, crawling, doubt and woe. +Then it's down to chewing muclucs, to the water you can EAT, +To fish you bolt with nose held in your hand. +When you get right down to cases, it's King's Grub that rules the races, +And the Wanderlust will help you understand. + + Haunting, taunting, that is the spell of it; + Mocking, baulking, that is the hell of it; + But I'll shoulder my pack in the morning, boys, + And I'm going because I must; + For it's so-long to all + When you answer the call + Of the Wan-der-lust. + +The Wanderlust has blest me . . . in a ragged blanket curled, +I've watched the gulf of Heaven foam with stars; +I've walked with eyes wide open to the wonder of the world, +I've seen God's flood of glory burst its bars. +I've seen the gold a-blinding in the riffles of the sky, +Till I fancied me a bloated plutocrat; +But I'm freedom's happy bond-slave, and I will be till I die, +And I've got to thank the Wanderlust for that. + + Wild heart, child heart, all of the world your home. + Glad heart, mad heart, what can you do but roam? + Oh, I'll beat it once more in the morning, boys, + With a pinch of tea and a crust; + For you cannot deny + When you hark to the cry + Of the Wan-der-lust. + +The Wanderlust will claim me at the finish for its own. +I'll turn my back on men and face the Pole. +Beyond the Arctic outposts I will venture all alone; +Some Never-never Land will be my goal. +Thank God! there's none will miss me, for I've been a bird of flight; +And in my moccasins I'll take my call; +For the Wanderlust has ruled me, +And the Wanderlust has schooled me, +And I'm ready for the darkest trail of all. + + Grim land, dim land, oh, how the vastness calls! + Far land, star land, oh, how the stillness falls! + For you never can tell if it's heaven or hell, + And I'm taking the trail on trust; + But I haven't a doubt + That my soul will leap out + On its Wan-der-lust. + + + + +The Trapper's Christmas Eve + + + +It's mighty lonesome-like and drear. +Above the Wild the moon rides high, +And shows up sharp and needle-clear +The emptiness of earth and sky; +No happy homes with love a-glow; +No Santa Claus to make believe: +Just snow and snow, and then more snow; +It's Christmas Eve, it's Christmas Eve. + +And here am I where all things end, +And Undesirables are hurled; +A poor old man without a friend, +Forgot and dead to all the world; +Clean out of sight and out of mind . . . +Well, maybe it is better so; +We all in life our level find, +And mine, I guess, is pretty low. + +Yet as I sit with pipe alight +Beside the cabin-fire, it's queer +This mind of mine must take to-night +The backward trail of fifty year. +The school-house and the Christmas tree; +The children with their cheeks a-glow; +Two bright blue eyes that smile on me . . . +Just half a century ago. + +Again (it's maybe forty years), +With faith and trust almost divine, +These same blue eyes, abrim with tears, +Through depths of love look into mine. +A parting, tender, soft and low, +With arms that cling and lips that cleave . . . +Ah me! it's all so long ago, +Yet seems so sweet this Christmas Eve. + +Just thirty years ago, again . . . +We say a bitter, LAST good-bye; +Our lips are white with wrath and pain; +Our little children cling and cry. +Whose was the fault? it matters not, +For man and woman both deceive; +It's buried now and all forgot, +Forgiven, too, this Christmas Eve. + +And she (God pity me) is dead; +Our children men and women grown. +I like to think that they are wed, +With little children of their own, +That crowd around their Christmas tree . . . +I would not ever have them grieve, +Or shed a single tear for me, +To mar their joy this Christmas Eve. + +Stripped to the buff and gaunt and still +Lies all the land in grim distress. +Like lost soul wailing, long and shrill, +A wolf-howl cleaves the emptiness. +Then hushed as Death is everything. +The moon rides haggard and forlorn . . . +"O hark the herald angels sing!" +God bless all men -- it's Christmas morn. + + + + +The World's All Right + + + + Be honest, kindly, simple, true; + Seek good in all, scorn but pretence; + Whatever sorrow come to you, + Believe in Life's Beneficence! + +The World's all right; serene I sit, +And cease to puzzle over it. +There's much that's mighty strange, no doubt; +But Nature knows what she's about; +And in a million years or so +We'll know more than to-day we know. +Old Evolution's under way -- + What ho! the World's all right, I say. + +Could things be other than they are? +All's in its place, from mote to star. +The thistledown that flits and flies +Could drift no hair-breadth otherwise. +What is, must be; with rhythmic laws +All Nature chimes, Effect and Cause. +The sand-grain and the sun obey -- + What ho! the World's all right, I say. + +Just try to get the Cosmic touch, +The sense that "you" don't matter much. +A million stars are in the sky; +A million planets plunge and die; +A million million men are sped; +A million million wait ahead. +Each plays his part and has his day -- + What ho! the World's all right, I say. + +Just try to get the Chemic view: +A million million lives made "you". +In lives a million you will be +Immortal down Eternity; +Immortal on this earth to range, +With never death, but ever change. +You always were, and will be aye -- + What ho! the World's all right, I say. + +Be glad! And do not blindly grope +For Truth that lies beyond our scope: +A sober plot informeth all +Of Life's uproarious carnival. +Your day is such a little one, +A gnat that lives from sun to sun; +Yet gnat and you have parts to play -- + What ho! the World's all right, I say. + +And though it's written from the start, +Just act your best your little part. +Just be as happy as you can, +And serve your kind, and die -- a man. +Just live the good that in you lies, +And seek no guerdon of the skies; +Just make your Heaven here, to-day -- + What ho! the World's all right, I say. + +Remember! in Creation's swing +The Race and not the man's the thing. +There's battle, murder, sudden death, +And pestilence, with poisoned breath. +Yet quick forgotten are such woes; +On, on the stream of Being flows. +Truth, Beauty, Love uphold their sway -- + What ho! the World's all right, I say. + +The World's all right; serene I sit, +And joy that I am part of it; +And put my trust in Nature's plan, +And try to aid her all I can; +Content to pass, if in my place +I've served the uplift of the Race. +Truth! Beauty! Love! O Radiant Day -- + What ho! the World's all right, I say. + + + + +The Baldness of Chewed-Ear + + + +When Chewed-ear Jenkins got hitched up to Guinneyveer McGee, +His flowin' locks, ye recollect, wuz frivolous an' free; +But in old Hymen's jack-pot, it's a most amazin' thing, +Them flowin' locks jest disappeared like snow-balls in the Spring; +Jest seemed to wilt an' fade away like dead leaves in the Fall, +An' left old Chewed-ear balder than a white-washed cannon ball. + +Now Missis Chewed-ear Jenkins, that wuz Guinneyveer McGee, +Wuz jest about as fine a draw as ever made a pair; +But when the boys got joshin' an' suggested it was she +That must be inflooenshul for the old man's slump in hair -- +Why! Missis Chewed-ear Jenkins jest went clean up in the air. + +"To demonstrate," sez she that night, "the lovin' wife I am, +I've bought a dozen bottles of Bink's Anty-Dandruff Balm. +'Twill make yer hair jest sprout an' curl like squash-vines in the sun, +An' I'm propose to sling it on till every drop is done." +That hit old Chewed-ear's funny side, so he lays back an' hollers: +"The day you raise a hair, old girl, you'll git a thousand dollars." + +Now, whether 'twas the prize or not 'tis mighty hard to say, +But Chewed-ear didn't seem to have much comfort from that day. +With bottles of that dandruff dope she followed at his heels, +An' sprinkled an' massaged him even when he ate his meals. +She waked him from his beauty sleep with tender, lovin' care, +An' rubbed an' scrubbed assiduous, yet never sign of hair. + +Well, naturally all the boys soon tumbled to the joke, +An' at the Wow-wow's Social 'twas Cold-deck Davis spoke: +"The little woman's working mighty hard on Chewed-ear's crown; +Let's give her for a three-fifth's share a hundred dollars down. +We stand to make five hundred clear -- boys, drink in whiskey straight: +`The Chewed-ear Jenkins Hirsute Propagation Syndicate'." + +The boys wuz on, an' soon chipped in the necessary dust; +They primed up a committy to negotiate the deal; +Then Missis Jenkins yielded, bein' rather in disgust, +An' all wuz signed an' witnessed, an' invested with a seal. +They rounded up old Chewed-ear, an' they broke it what they'd done; +Allowed they'd bought an interest in his chance of raisin' hair; +They yanked his hat off anxiouslike, opinin' one by one +Their magnifyin' glasses showed fine prospects everywhere. +They bought Hairlene, an' Thatchem, an' Jay's Capillery Juice, +An' Seven Something Sisters, an' Macassar an' Bay Rum, +An' everyone insisted on his speshul right to sluice +His speshul line of lotion onto Chewed-ear's cranium. +They only got the merrier the more the old man roared, +An' shares in "Jenkins Hirsute" went sky-highin' on the board. + +The Syndicate wuz hopeful that they'd demonstrate the pay, +An' Missis Jenkins laboured in her perseverin' way. +The boys discussed on "surface rights", an' "out-crops" an' so on, +An' planned to have it "crown" surveyed, an' blue prints of it drawn. +They ran a base line, sluiced an' yelled, an' everyone wuz glad, +Except the balance of the property, an' he wuz "mad". +"It gives me pain," he interjects, "to squash yer glowin' dream, +But you wuz fools when you got in on this here `Hirsute' scheme. +You'll never raise a hair on me," when lo! that very night, +Preparin' to retire he got a most onpleasant fright: +For on that shinin' dome of his, so prominently bare, +He felt the baby outcrop of a second growth of hair. + +A thousand dollars! Sufferin' Caesar! Well, it must be saved! +He grabbed his razor recklesslike, an' shaved an' shaved an' shaved. +An' when his head was smooth again he gives a mighty sigh, +An' sneaks away, an' buys some Hair Destroyer on the sly. +So there wuz Missis Jenkins with "Restorer" wagin' fight, +An' Chewed-ear with "Destroyer" circumventin' her at night. +The battle wuz a mighty one; his nerves wuz on the strain, +An' yet in spite of all he did that hair began to gain. + +The situation grew intense, so quietly one day, +He gave his share-holders the slip, an' made his get-a-way. +Jest like a criminal he skipped, an' aimed to defalcate +The Chewed-ear Jenkins Hirsute Propagation Syndicate. +His guilty secret burned him, an' he sought the city's din: +"I've got to get a wig," sez he, "to cover up my sin. +It's growin', growin' night an' day; it's most amazin' hair"; +An' when he looked at it that night, he shuddered with despair. +He shuddered an' suppressed a cry at what his optics seen -- +For on my word of honour, boys, that hair wuz growin' GREEN. + +At first he guessed he'd get some dye, an' try to dye it black; +An' then he saw 'twas Nemmysis wuz layin' on his track. +He must jest face the music, an' confess the thing he done, +An' pay the boys an' Guinneyveer the money they had won. +An' then there came a big idee -- it thrilled him like a shock: +Why not control the Syndicate by buyin' up the Stock? + +An' so next day he hurried back with smoothly shaven pate, +An' for a hundred dollars he bought up the Syndicate. +'Twas mighty frenzied finance an' the boys set up a roar, +But "Hirsutes" from the market wuz withdrawn for evermore. +An' to this day in Nuggetsville they tell the tale how slick +The Syndicate sold out too soon, and Chewed-ear turned the trick. + + + + +The Mother + + + +There will be a singing in your heart, +There will be a rapture in your eyes; +You will be a woman set apart, +You will be so wonderful and wise. +You will sleep, and when from dreams you start, +As of one that wakes in Paradise, +There will be a singing in your heart, +There will be a rapture in your eyes. + +There will be a moaning in your heart, +There will be an anguish in your eyes; +You will see your dearest ones depart, +You will hear their quivering good-byes. +Yours will be the heart-ache and the smart, +Tears that scald and lonely sacrifice; +There will be a moaning in your heart, +There will be an anguish in your eyes. + +There will come a glory in your eyes, +There will come a peace within your heart; +Sitting 'neath the quiet evening skies, +Time will dry the tear and dull the smart. +You will know that you have played your part; +Yours shall be the love that never dies: +You, with Heaven's peace within your heart, +You, with God's own glory in your eyes. + + + + +The Dreamer + + + +The lone man gazed and gazed upon his gold, +His sweat, his blood, the wage of weary days; +But now how sweet, how doubly sweet to hold +All gay and gleamy to the campfire blaze. +The evening sky was sinister and cold; +The willows shivered, wanly lay the snow; +The uncommiserating land, so old, +So worn, so grey, so niggard in its woe, +Peered through its ragged shroud. The lone man sighed, +Poured back the gaudy dust into its poke, +Gazed at the seething river listless-eyed, +Loaded his corn-cob pipe as if to smoke; +Then crushed with weariness and hardship crept +Into his ragged robe, and swiftly slept. + + . . . . . + +Hour after hour went by; a shadow slipped +From vasts of shadow to the camp-fire flame; +Gripping a rifle with a deadly aim, +A gaunt and hairy man with wolfish eyes . . . + + * * * * * + +The sleeper dreamed, and lo! this was his dream: +He rode a streaming horse across a moor. +Sudden 'mid pit-black night a lightning gleam +Showed him a way-side inn, forlorn and poor. +A sullen host unbarred the creaking door, +And led him to a dim and dreary room; +Wherein he sat and poked the fire a-roar, +So that weird shadows jigged athwart the gloom. +He ordered wine. 'Od's blood! but he was tired. +What matter! Charles was crushed and George was King; +His party high in power; how he aspired! +Red guineas packed his purse, too tight to ring. +The fire-light gleamed upon his silken hose, +His silver buckles and his powdered wig. +What ho! more wine! He drank, he slowly rose. +What made the shadows dance that madcap jig? +He clutched the candle, steered his way to bed, +And in a trice was sleeping like the dead. + + . . . . . + +Across the room there crept, so shadow soft, +His sullen host, with naked knife a-gleam, +(A gaunt and hairy man with wolfish eyes.) . . . +And as he lay, the sleeper dreamed a dream. + + * * * * * + +'Twas in a ruder land, a wilder day. +A rival princeling sat upon his throne, +Within a dungeon, dark and foul he lay, +With chains that bit and festered to the bone. +They haled him harshly to a vaulted room, +Where One gazed on him with malignant eye; +And in that devil-face he read his doom, +Knowing that ere the dawn-light he must die. +Well, he was sorrow-glutted; let them bring +Their prize assassins to the bloody work. +His kingdom lost, yet would he die a King, +Fearless and proud, as when he faced the Turk. +Ah God! the glory of that great Crusade! +The bannered pomp, the gleam, the splendid urge! +The crash of reeking combat, blade to blade! +The reeling ranks, blood-avid and a-surge! +For long he thought; then feeling o'er him creep +Vast weariness, he fell into a sleep. + + . . . . . + +The cell door opened; soft the headsman came, +Within his hand a mighty axe a-gleam, +(A gaunt and hairy man with wolfish eyes,) . . . +And as he lay, the sleeper dreamed a dream. + + * * * * * + +'Twas in a land unkempt of life's red dawn; +Where in his sanded cave he dwelt alone; +Sleeping by day, or sometimes worked upon +His flint-head arrows and his knives of stone; +By night stole forth and slew the savage boar, +So that he loomed a hunter of loud fame, +And many a skin of wolf and wild-cat wore, +And counted many a flint-head to his name; +Wherefore he walked the envy of the band, +Hated and feared, but matchless in his skill. +Till lo! one night deep in that shaggy land, +He tracked a yearling bear and made his kill; +Then over-worn he rested by a stream, +And sank into a sleep too deep for dream. + + . . . . . + +Hunting his food a rival caveman crept +Through those dark woods, and marked him where he lay; +Cowered and crawled upon him as he slept, +Poising a mighty stone aloft to slay -- +(A gaunt and hairy man with wolfish eyes.) . . . + + * * * * * + +The great stone crashed. The Dreamer shrieked and woke, +And saw, fear-blinded, in his dripping cell, +A gaunt and hairy man, who with one stroke +Swung a great ax of steel that flashed and fell . . . + +So that he woke amid his bedroom gloom, +And saw, hair-poised, a naked, thirsting knife, +A gaunt and hairy man with eyes of doom -- +And then the blade plunged down to drink his life . . . +So that he woke, wrenched back his robe, and looked, +And saw beside his dying fire upstart +A gaunt and hairy man with finger crooked -- +A rifle rang, a bullet searched his heart . . . + + * * * * * + +The morning sky was sinister and cold. +Grotesque the Dreamer sprawled, and did not rise. +For long and long there gazed upon some gold +A GAUNT AND HAIRY MAN WITH WOLFISH EYES. + + + + +At Thirty-Five + + + +Three score and ten, the psalmist saith, +And half my course is well-nigh run; +I've had my flout at dusty death, +I've had my whack of feast and fun. +I've mocked at those who prate and preach; +I've laughed with any man alive; +But now with sobered heart I reach +The Great Divide of Thirty-five. + +And looking back I must confess +I've little cause to feel elate. +I've played the mummer more or less; +I fumbled fortune, flouted fate. +I've vastly dreamed and little done; +I've idly watched my brothers strive: +Oh, I have loitered in the sun +By primrose paths to Thirty-five! + +And those who matched me in the race, +Well, some are out and trampled down; +The others jog with sober pace; +Yet one wins delicate renown. +O midnight feast and famished dawn! +O gay, hard life, with hope alive! +O golden youth, forever gone, +How sweet you seem at Thirty-five! + +Each of our lives is just a book +As absolute as Holy Writ; +We humbly read, and may not look +Ahead, nor change one word of it. +And here are joys and here are pains; +And here we fail and here we thrive; +O wondrous volume! what remains +When we reach chapter Thirty-five? + +The very best, I dare to hope, +Ere Fate writes Finis to the tome; +A wiser head, a wider scope, +And for the gipsy heart, a home; +A songful home, with loved ones near, +With joy, with sunshine all alive: +Watch me grow younger every year -- +Old Age! thy name is Thirty-five! + + + + +The Squaw Man + + + +The cow-moose comes to water, and the beaver's overbold, +The net is in the eddy of the stream; +The teepee stars the vivid sward with russet, red and gold, +And in the velvet gloom the fire's a-gleam. +The night is ripe with quiet, rich with incense of the pine; +From sanctuary lake I hear the loon; +The peaks are bright against the blue, and drenched with sunset wine, +And like a silver bubble is the moon. + +Cloud-high I climbed but yesterday; a hundred miles around +I looked to see a rival fire a-gleam. +As in a crystal lens it lay, a land without a bound, +All lure, and virgin vastitude, and dream. +The great sky soared exultantly, the great earth bared its breast, +All river-veined and patterned with the pine; +The heedless hordes of caribou were streaming to the West, +A land of lustrous mystery -- and mine. + +Yea, mine to frame my Odyssey: Oh, little do they know +My conquest and the kingdom that I keep! +The meadows of the musk-ox, where the laughing grasses grow, +The rivers where the careless conies leap. +Beyond the silent Circle, where white men are fierce and few, +I lord it, and I mock at man-made law; +Like a flame upon the water is my little light canoe, +And yonder in the fireglow is my squaw. + +A squaw man! yes, that's what I am; sneer at me if you will. +I've gone the grilling pace that cannot last; +With bawdry, bridge and brandy -- Oh, I've drank enough to kill +A dozen such as you, but that is past. +I've swung round to my senses, found the place where I belong; +The City made a madman out of me; +But here beyond the Circle, where there's neither right or wrong, +I leap from life's straight-jacket, and I'm free. + +Yet ever in the far forlorn, by trails of lone desire; +Yet ever in the dawn's white leer of hate; +Yet ever by the dripping kill, beside the drowsy fire, +There comes the fierce heart-hunger for a mate. +There comes the mad blood-clamour for a woman's clinging hand, +Love-humid eyes, the velvet of a breast; +And so I sought the Bonnet-plumes, and chose from out the band +The girl I thought the sweetest and the best. + +O wistful women I have loved before my dark disgrace! +O women fair and rare in my home land! +Dear ladies, if I saw you now I'd turn away my face, +Then crawl to kiss your foot-prints in the sand! +And yet -- that day the rifle jammed -- a wounded moose at bay -- +A roar, a charge . . . I faced it with my knife: +A shot from out the willow-scrub, and there the monster lay. . . . +Yes, little Laughing Eyes, you saved my life. + +The man must have the woman, and we're all brutes more or less, +Since first the male ape shinned the family tree; +And yet I think I love her with a husband's tenderness, +And yet I know that she would die for me. +Oh, if I left you, Laughing Eyes, and nevermore came back, +God help you, girl! I know what you would do. . . . +I see the lake wan in the moon, and from the shadow black, +There drifts a little, EMPTY birch canoe. + +We're here beyond the Circle, where there's never wrong nor right; +We aren't spliced according to the law; +But by the gods I hail you on this hushed and holy night +As the mother of my children, and my squaw. +I see your little slender face set in the firelight glow; +I pray that I may never make it sad; +I hear you croon a baby song, all slumber-soft and low -- +God bless you, little Laughing Eyes! I'm glad. + + + + +Home and Love + + + +Just Home and Love! the words are small +Four little letters unto each; +And yet you will not find in all +The wide and gracious range of speech +Two more so tenderly complete: +When angels talk in Heaven above, +I'm sure they have no words more sweet + Than Home and Love. + +Just Home and Love! it's hard to guess +Which of the two were best to gain; +Home without Love is bitterness; +Love without Home is often pain. +No! each alone will seldom do; +Somehow they travel hand and glove: +If you win one you must have two, + Both Home and Love. + +And if you've both, well then I'm sure +You ought to sing the whole day long; +It doesn't matter if you're poor +With these to make divine your song. +And so I praisefully repeat, +When angels talk in Heaven above, +There are no words more simply sweet + Than Home and Love. + + + + +I'm Scared of it All + + + +I'm scared of it all, God's truth! so I am; +It's too big and brutal for me. +My nerve's on the raw and I don't give a damn +For all the "hoorah" that I see. +I'm pinned between subway and overhead train, +Where automobillies swoop down: +Oh, I want to go back to the timber again -- +I'm scared of the terrible town. + +I want to go back to my lean, ashen plains; +My rivers that flash into foam; +My ultimate valleys where solitude reigns; +My trail from Fort Churchill to Nome. +My forests packed full of mysterious gloom, +My ice-fields agrind and aglare: +The city is deadfalled with danger and doom -- +I know that I'm safer up there. + +I watch the wan faces that flash in the street; +All kinds and all classes I see. +Yet never a one in the million I meet, +Has the smile of a comrade for me. +Just jaded and panting like dogs in a pack; +Just tensed and intent on the goal: +O God! but I'm lonesome -- I wish I was back, +Up there in the land of the Pole. + +I wish I was back on the Hunger Plateaus, +And seeking the lost caribou; +I wish I was up where the Coppermine flows +To the kick of my little canoe. +I'd like to be far on some weariful shore, +In the Land of the Blizzard and Bear; +Oh, I wish I was snug in the Arctic once more, +For I know I am safer up there! + +I prowl in the canyons of dismal unrest; +I cringe -- I'm so weak and so small. +I can't get my bearings, I'm crushed and oppressed +With the haste and the waste of it all. +The slaves and the madman, the lust and the sweat, +The fear in the faces I see; +The getting, the spending, the fever, the fret -- +It's too bleeding cruel for me. + +I feel it's all wrong, but I can't tell you why -- +The palace, the hovel next door; +The insolent towers that sprawl to the sky, +The crush and the rush and the roar. +I'm trapped like a fox and I fear for my pelt; +I cower in the crash and the glare; +Oh, I want to be back in the avalanche belt, +For I know that it's safer up there! + +I'm scared of it all: Oh, afar I can hear +The voice of my solitudes call! +We're nothing but brute with a little veneer, +And nature is best after all. +There's tumult and terror abroad in the street; +There's menace and doom in the air; +I've got to get back to my thousand-mile beat; +The trail where the cougar and silver-tip meet; +The snows and the camp-fire, with wolves at my feet; + Good-bye, for it's safer up there. + + To be forming good habits up there; + To be starving on rabbits up there; + In your hunger and woe, + Though it's sixty below, + Oh, I know that it's safer up there! + + + + +A Song of Success + + + +Ho! we were strong, we were swift, we were brave. +Youth was a challenge, and Life was a fight. +All that was best in us gladly we gave, +Sprang from the rally, and leapt for the height. +Smiling is Love in a foam of Spring flowers: +Harden our hearts to him -- on let us press! +Oh, what a triumph and pride shall be ours! +See where it beacons, the star of success! + +Cares seem to crowd on us -- so much to do; +New fields to conquer, and time's on the wing. +Grey hairs are showing, a wrinkle or two; +Somehow our footstep is losing its spring. +Pleasure's forsaken us, Love ceased to smile; +Youth has been funeralled; Age travels fast. +Sometimes we wonder: is it worth while? +There! we have gained to the summit at last. + +Aye, we have triumphed! Now must we haste, +Revel in victory . . . why! what is wrong? +Life's choicest vintage is flat to the taste -- +Are we too late? Have we laboured too long? +Wealth, power, fame we hold . . . ah! but the truth: +Would we not give this vain glory of ours +For one mad, glad year of glorious youth, +Life in the Springtide, and Love in the flowers. + + + + +The Song of the Camp-Fire + + + + I + +Heed me, feed me, I am hungry, I am red-tongued with desire; +Boughs of balsam, slabs of cedar, gummy fagots of the pine, +Heap them on me, let me hug them to my eager heart of fire, +Roaring, soaring up to heaven as a symbol and a sign. +Bring me knots of sunny maple, silver birch and tamarack; +Leaping, sweeping, I will lap them with my ardent wings of flame; +I will kindle them to glory, I will beat the darkness back; +Streaming, gleaming, I will goad them to my glory and my fame. +Bring me gnarly limbs of live-oak, aid me in my frenzied fight; +Strips of iron-wood, scaly blue-gum, writhing redly in my hold; +With my lunge of lurid lances, with my whips that flail the night, +They will burgeon into beauty, they will foliate in gold. +Let me star the dim sierras, stab with light the inland seas; +Roaming wind and roaring darkness! seek no mercy at my hands; +I will mock the marly heavens, lamp the purple prairies, +I will flaunt my deathless banners down the far, unhouseled lands. +In the vast and vaulted pine-gloom where the pillared forests frown, +By the sullen, bestial rivers running where God only knows, +On the starlit coral beaches when the combers thunder down, +In the death-spell of the barrens, in the shudder of the snows; +In a blazing belt of triumph from the palm-leaf to the pine, +As a symbol of defiance lo! the wilderness I span; +And my beacons burn exultant as an everlasting sign +Of unending domination, of the mastery of Man; +I, the Life, the fierce Uplifter, I that weaned him from the mire; +I, the angel and the devil, I, the tyrant and the slave; +I, the Spirit of the Struggle; I, the mighty God of Fire; +I, the Maker and Destroyer; I, the Giver and the Grave. + + + II + +Gather round me, boy and grey-beard, frontiersman of every kind. +Few are you, and far and lonely, yet an army forms behind: +By your camp-fires shall they know you, ashes scattered to the wind. + +Peer into my heart of solace, break your bannock at my blaze; +Smoking, stretched in lazy shelter, build your castles as you gaze; +Or, it may be, deep in dreaming, think of dim, unhappy days. + +Let my warmth and glow caress you, for your trails are grim and hard; +Let my arms of comfort press you, hunger-hewn and battle-scarred: +O my lovers! how I bless you with your lives so madly marred! + +For you seek the silent spaces, and their secret lore you glean: +For you win the savage races, and the brutish Wild you wean; +And I gladden desert places, where camp-fire has never been. + +From the Pole unto the Tropics is there trail ye have not dared? +And because you hold death lightly, so by death shall you be spared, +(As the sages of the ages in their pages have declared). + +On the roaring Arkilinik in a leaky bark canoe; +Up the cloud of Mount McKinley, where the avalanche leaps through; +In the furnace of Death Valley, when the mirage glimmers blue. + +Now a smudge of wiry willows on the weary Kuskoquim; +Now a flare of gummy pine-knots where Vancouver's scaur is grim; +Now a gleam of sunny ceiba, when the Cuban beaches dim. + +Always, always God's Great Open: lo! I burn with keener light +In the corridors of silence, in the vestibules of night; +'Mid the ferns and grasses gleaming, was there ever gem so bright? + +Not for weaklings, not for women, like my brother of the hearth; +Ring your songs of wrath around me, I was made for manful mirth, +In the lusty, gusty greatness, on the bald spots of the earth. + +Men, my masters! men, my lovers! ye have fought and ye have bled; +Gather round my ruddy embers, softly glowing is my bed; +By my heart of solace dreaming, rest ye and be comforted! + + + III + +I am dying, O my masters! by my fitful flame ye sleep; + My purple plumes of glory droop forlorn. +Grey ashes choke and cloak me, and above the pines there creep + The stealthy silver moccasins of morn. +There comes a countless army, it's the Legion of the Light; + It tramps in gleaming triumph round the world; +And before its jewelled lances all the shadows of the night + Back in to abysmal darknesses are hurled. + +Leap to life again, my lovers! ye must toil and never tire; + The day of daring, doing, brightens clear, +When the bed of spicy cedar and the jovial camp-fire + Must only be a memory of cheer. +There is hope and golden promise in the vast portentous dawn; + There is glamour in the glad, effluent sky: +Go and leave me; I will dream of you and love you when you're gone; + I have served you, O my masters! let me die. + +A little heap of ashes, grey and sodden by the rain, + Wind-scattered, blurred and blotted by the snow: +Let that be all to tell of me, and glorious again, + Ye things of greening gladness, leap and glow! +A black scar in the sunshine by the palm-leaf or the pine, + Blind to the night and dead to all desire; +Yet oh, of life and uplift what a symbol and a sign! +Yet oh, of power and conquest what a destiny is mine! +A little heap of ashes -- Yea! a miracle divine, + The foot-print of a god, all-radiant Fire. + + + + +Her Letter + + + +"I'm taking pen in hand this night, and hard it is for me; +My poor old fingers tremble so, my hand is stiff and slow, +And even with my glasses on I'm troubled sore to see. . . . +You'd little know your mother, boy; you'd little, little know. +You mind how brisk and bright I was, how straight and trim and smart; +'Tis weariful I am the now, and bent and frail and grey. +I'm waiting at the road's end, lad; and all that's in my heart, +Is just to see my boy again before I'm called away." + +"Oh well I mind the sorry day you crossed the gurly sea; +'Twas like the heart was torn from me, a waeful wife was I. +You said that you'd be home again in two years, maybe three; +But nigh a score of years have gone, and still the years go by. +I know it's cruel hard for you, you've bairnies of your own; +I know the siller's hard to win, and folks have used you ill: +But oh, think of your mother, lad, that's waiting by her lone! +And even if you canna come -- JUST WRITE AND SAY YOU WILL." + +"Aye, even though there's little hope, just promise that you'll try. +It's weary, weary waiting, lad; just say you'll come next year. +I'm thinking there will be no `next'; I'm thinking soon I'll lie +With all the ones I've laid away . . . but oh, the hope will cheer! +You know you're all that's left to me, and we are seas apart; +But if you'll only SAY you'll come, then will I hope and pray. +I'm waiting by the grave-side, lad; and all that's in my heart +Is just to see my boy again before I'm called away." + + + + +The Man Who Knew + + + +The Dreamer visioned Life as it might be, +And from his dream forthright a picture grew, +A painting all the people thronged to see, +And joyed therein -- till came the Man Who Knew, +Saying: "'Tis bad! Why do ye gape, ye fools! +He painteth not according to the schools." + +The Dreamer probed Life's mystery of woe, +And in a book he sought to give the clue; +The people read, and saw that it was so, +And read again -- then came the Man Who Knew, +Saying: "Ye witless ones! this book is vile: +It hath not got the rudiments of style." + +Love smote the Dreamer's lips, and silver clear +He sang a song so sweet, so tender true, +That all the market-place was thrilled to hear, +And listened rapt -- till came the Man Who Knew, +Saying: "His technique's wrong; he singeth ill. +Waste not your time." The singer's voice was still. + +And then the people roused as if from sleep, +Crying: "What care we if it be not Art! +Hath he not charmed us, made us laugh and weep? +Come, let us crown him where he sits apart." +Then, with his picture spurned, his book unread, +His song unsung, they found their Dreamer -- DEAD. + + + + +The Logger + + + +In the moonless, misty night, with my little pipe alight, + I am sitting by the camp-fire's fading cheer; +Oh, the dew is falling chill on the dim, deer-haunted hill, + And the breakers in the bay are moaning drear. +The toilful hours are sped, the boys are long abed, + And I alone a weary vigil keep; +In the sightless, sullen sky I can hear the night-hawk cry, + And the frogs in frenzied chorus from the creek. + +And somehow the embers' glow brings me back the long ago, + The days of merry laughter and light song; +When I sped the hours away with the gayest of the gay + In the giddy whirl of fashion's festal throng. +Oh, I ran a grilling race and I little recked the pace, + For the lust of youth ran riot in my blood; +But at last I made a stand in this God-forsaken land + Of the pine-tree and the mountain and the flood. + +And now I've got to stay, with an overdraft to pay, + For pleasure in the past with future pain; +And I'm not the chap to whine, for if the chance were mine + I know I'd choose the old life once again. +With its woman's eyes a-shine, and its flood of golden wine; + Its fever and its frolic and its fun; +The old life with its din, its laughter and its sin -- + And chuck me in the gutter when it's done. + +Ah, well! it's past and gone, and the memory is wan, + That conjures up each old familiar face; +And here by fortune hurled, I am dead to all the world, + And I've learned to lose my pride and keep my place. +My ways are hard and rough, and my arms are strong and tough, + And I hew the dizzy pine till darkness falls; +And sometimes I take a dive, just to keep my heart alive, + Among the gay saloons and dancing halls. + +In the distant, dinful town just a little drink to drown + The cares that crowd and canker in my brain; +Just a little joy to still set my pulses all a-thrill, + Then back to brutish labour once again. +And things will go on so until one day I shall know + That Death has got me cinched beyond a doubt; +Then I'll crawl away from sight, and morosely in the night + My weary, wasted life will peter out. + +Then the boys will gather round, and they'll launch me in the ground, + And pile the stones the timber wolf to foil; +And the moaning pine will wave overhead a nameless grave, + Where the black snake in the sunshine loves to coil. +And they'll leave me there alone, and perhaps with softened tone + Speak of me sometimes in the camp-fire's glow, +As a played-out, broken chum, who has gone to Kingdom Come, + And who went the pace in England long ago. + + + + +The Passing of the Year + + + +My glass is filled, my pipe is lit, + My den is all a cosy glow; +And snug before the fire I sit, + And wait to FEEL the old year go. +I dedicate to solemn thought + Amid my too-unthinking days, +This sober moment, sadly fraught + With much of blame, with little praise. + +Old Year! upon the Stage of Time + You stand to bow your last adieu; +A moment, and the prompter's chime + Will ring the curtain down on you. +Your mien is sad, your step is slow; + You falter as a Sage in pain; +Yet turn, Old Year, before you go, + And face your audience again. + +That sphinx-like face, remote, austere, + Let us all read, whate'er the cost: +O Maiden! why that bitter tear? + Is it for dear one you have lost? +Is it for fond illusion gone? + For trusted lover proved untrue? +O sweet girl-face, so sad, so wan + What hath the Old Year meant to you? + +And you, O neighbour on my right + So sleek, so prosperously clad! +What see you in that aged wight + That makes your smile so gay and glad? +What opportunity unmissed? + What golden gain, what pride of place? +What splendid hope? O Optimist! + What read you in that withered face? + +And You, deep shrinking in the gloom, + What find you in that filmy gaze? +What menace of a tragic doom? + What dark, condemning yesterdays? +What urge to crime, what evil done? + What cold, confronting shape of fear? +O haggard, haunted, hidden One + What see you in the dying year? + +And so from face to face I flit, + The countless eyes that stare and stare; +Some are with approbation lit, + And some are shadowed with despair. +Some show a smile and some a frown; + Some joy and hope, some pain and woe: +Enough! Oh, ring the curtain down! + Old weary year! it's time to go. + +My pipe is out, my glass is dry; + My fire is almost ashes too; +But once again, before you go, + And I prepare to meet the New: +Old Year! a parting word that's true, + For we've been comrades, you and I -- +I THANK GOD FOR EACH DAY OF YOU; + There! bless you now! Old Year, good-bye! + + + + +The Ghosts + + + +Smith, great writer of stories, drank; found it immortalised his pen; +Fused in his brain-pan, else a blank, heavens of glory now and then; +Gave him the magical genius touch; God-given power to gouge out, fling +Flat in your face a soul-thought -- Bing! + Twiddle your heart-strings in his clutch. +"Bah!" said Smith, "let my body lie stripped to the buff in swinish shame, +If I can blaze in the radiant sky out of adoring stars my name. +Sober am I nonentitized; drunk am I more than half a god. +Well, let the flesh be sacrificed; spirit shall speak and shame the clod. +Who would not gladly, gladly give Life to do one thing that will live?" + +Smith had a friend, we'll call him Brown; + dearer than brothers were those two. +When in the wassail Smith would drown, + Brown would rescue and pull him through. +When Brown was needful Smith would lend; so it fell as the years went by, +Each on the other would depend: then at the last Smith came to die. + +There Brown sat in the sick man's room, still as a stone in his despair; +Smith bent on him his eyes of doom, shook back his lion mane of hair; +Said: "Is there one in my chosen line, writer of forthright tales my peer? +Look in that little desk of mine; there is a package, bring it here. +Story of stories, gem of all; essence and triumph, key and clue; +Tale of a loving woman's fall; soul swept hell-ward, and God! it's true. +I was the man -- Oh, yes, I've paid, paid with mighty and mordant pain. +Look! here's the masterpiece I've made out of my sin, my manhood slain. +Art supreme! yet the world would stare, know my mistress and blaze my shame. +I have a wife and daughter -- there! take it and thrust it in the flame." + +Brown answered: "Master, you have dipped + pen in your heart, your phrases sear. +Ruthless, unflinching, you have stripped naked your soul and set it here. +Have I not loved you well and true? See! between us the shadows drift; +This bit of blood and tears means You -- oh, let me have it, a parting gift. +Sacred I'll hold it, a trust divine; sacred your honour, her dark despair; +Never shall it see printed line: here, by the living God I swear." +Brown on a Bible laid his hand; Smith, great writer of stories, sighed: +"Comrade, I trust you, and understand. Keep my secret!" And so he died. + +Smith was buried -- up soared his sales; lured you his books in every store; +Exquisite, whimsy, heart-wrung tales; men devoured them and craved for more. +So when it slyly got about Brown had a posthumous manuscript, +Jones, the publisher, sought him out, into his pocket deep he dipped. +"A thousand dollars?" Brown shook his head. + "The story is not for sale," he said. + +Jones went away, then others came. Tempted and taunted, Brown was true. +Guarded at friendship's shrine the fame + of the unpublished story grew and grew. +It's a long, long lane that has no end, + but some lanes end in the Potter's field; +Smith to Brown had been more than friend: patron, protector, spur and shield. +Poor, loving-wistful, dreamy Brown, long and lean, with a smile askew, +Friendless he wandered up and down, gaunt as a wolf, as hungry too. +Brown with his lilt of saucy rhyme, Brown with his tilt of tender mirth +Garretless in the gloom and grime, singing his glad, mad songs of earth: +So at last with a faith divine, down and down to the Hunger-line. + +There as he stood in a woeful plight, + tears a-freeze on his sharp cheek-bones, +Who should chance to behold his plight, + but the publisher, the plethoric Jones; +Peered at him for a little while, held out a bill: "NOW, will you sell?" +Brown scanned it with his twisted smile: + "A thousand dollars! you go to hell!" + +Brown enrolled in the homeless host, sleeping anywhere, anywhen; +Suffered, strove, became a ghost, slave of the lamp for other men; +For What's-his-name and So-and-so in the abyss his soul he stripped, +Yet in his want, his worst of woe, held he fast to the manuscript. +Then one day as he chewed his pen, half in hunger and half despair, +Creaked the door of his garret den; Dick, his brother, was standing there. +Down on the pallet bed he sank, ashen his face, his voice a wail: +"Save me, brother! I've robbed the bank; to-morrow it's ruin, capture, gaol. +Yet there's a chance: I could to-day pay back the money, save our name; +You have a manuscript, they say, + worth a thousand -- think, man! the shame. . . ." +Brown with his heart pain-pierced the while, + with his stern, starved face, and his lips stone-pale, +Shuddered and smiled his twisted smile: "Brother, I guess you go to gaol." + +While poor Brown in the leer of dawn wrestled with God for the sacred fire, +Came there a woman weak and wan, out of the mob, the murk, the mire; +Frail as a reed, a fellow ghost, weary with woe, with sorrowing; +Two pale souls in the legion lost; lo! Love bent with a tender wing, +Taught them a joy so deep, so true, + it seemed that the whole-world fabric shook, +Thrilled and dissolved in radiant dew; then Brown made him a golden book, +Full of the faith that Life is good, that the earth is a dream divinely fair, +Lauding his gem of womanhood in many a lyric rich and rare; +Took it to Jones, who shook his head: "I will consider it," he said. + +While he considered, Brown's wife lay clutched in the tentacles of pain; +Then came the doctor, grave and grey; spoke of decline, of nervous strain; +Hinted Egypt, the South of France -- Brown with terror was tiger-gripped. +Where was the money? What the chance? Pitiful God! . . . the manuscript! +A thousand dollars! his only hope! + he gazed and gazed at the garret wall. . . . +Reached at last for the envelope, turned to his wife and told her all. +Told of his friend, his promise true; told like his very heart would break: +"Oh, my dearest! what shall I do? shall I not sell it for your sake?" +Ghostlike she lay, as still as doom; turned to the wall her weary head; +Icy-cold in the pallid gloom, silent as death . . . at last she said: +"Do! my husband? Keep your vow! Guard his secret and let me die. . . . +Oh, my dear, I must tell you now -- THE WOMAN HE LOVED AND WRONGED WAS I; +Darling! I haven't long to live: I never told you -- forgive, forgive!" + +For a long, long time Brown did not speak; + sat bleak-browed in the wretched room; +Slowly a tear stole down his cheek, + and he kissed her hand in the dismal gloom. +To break his oath, to brand her shame; + his well-loved friend, his worshipped wife; +To keep his vow, to save her name, yet at the cost of what? Her life! +A moment's space did he hesitate, a moment of pain and dread and doubt, +Then he broke the seals, and, stern as fate, + unfolded the sheets and spread them out. . . . +On his knees by her side he limply sank, + peering amazed -- EACH PAGE WAS BLANK. + +(For oh, the supremest of our art are the stories we do not dare to tell, +Locked in the silence of the heart, + for the awful records of Heav'n and Hell.) + +Yet those two in the silence there, seemed less weariful than before. +Hark! a step on the garret stair, a postman knocks at the flimsy door. +"Registered letter!" Brown thrills with fear; + opens, and reads, then bends above: +"Glorious tidings! Egypt, dear! The book is accepted -- life and love." + + + + +Good-Bye, Little Cabin + + + +O dear little cabin, I've loved you so long, +And now I must bid you good-bye! +I've filled you with laughter, I've thrilled you with song, +And sometimes I've wished I could cry. +Your walls they have witnessed a weariful fight, +And rung to a won Waterloo: +But oh, in my triumph I'm dreary to-night -- +Good-bye, little cabin, to you! + +Your roof is bewhiskered, your floor is a-slant, +Your walls seem to sag and to swing; +I'm trying to find just your faults, but I can't -- +You poor, tired, heart-broken old thing! +I've seen when you've been the best friend that I had, +Your light like a gem on the snow; +You're sort of a part of me -- Gee! but I'm sad; +I hate, little cabin, to go. + +Below your cracked window red raspberries climb; +A hornet's nest hangs from a beam; +Your rafters are scribbled with adage and rhyme, +And dimmed with tobacco and dream. +"Each day has its laugh", and "Don't worry, just work". +Such mottoes reproachfully shine. +Old calendars dangle -- what memories lurk +About you, dear cabin of mine! + +I hear the world-call and the clang of the fight; +I hear the hoarse cry of my kind; +Yet well do I know, as I quit you to-night, +It's Youth that I'm leaving behind. +And often I'll think of you, empty and black, +Moose antlers nailed over your door: +Oh, if I should perish my ghost will come back +To dwell in you, cabin, once more! + +How cold, still and lonely, how weary you seem! +A last wistful look and I'll go. +Oh, will you remember the lad with his dream! +The lad that you comforted so. +The shadows enfold you, it's drawing to-night; +The evening star needles the sky: +And huh! but it's stinging and stabbing my sight -- +God bless you, old cabin, good-bye! + + + + +Heart o' the North + + + +And when I come to the dim trail-end, + I who have been Life's rover, +This is all I would ask, my friend, + Over and over and over: + +A little space on a stony hill + With never another near me, +Sky o' the North that's vast and still, + With a single star to cheer me; + +Star that gleams on a moss-grey stone + Graven by those who love me -- +There would I lie alone, alone, + With a single pine above me; + +Pine that the north wind whinneys through -- + Oh, I have been Life's lover! +But there I'd lie and listen to + Eternity passing over. + + + + +The Scribe's Prayer + + + + When from my fumbling hand the tired pen falls, + And in the twilight weary droops my head; + While to my quiet heart a still voice calls, + Calls me to join my kindred of the Dead: + Grant that I may, O Lord, ere rest be mine, + Write to Thy praise one radiant, ringing line. + + For all of worth that in this clay abides, + The leaping rapture and the ardent flame, + The hope, the high resolve, the faith that guides: + All, all is Thine, and liveth in Thy name: + Lord, have I dallied with the sacred fire! + Lord, have I trailed Thy glory in the mire! + + E'en as a toper from the dram-shop reeling, + Sees in his garret's blackness, dazzling fair, + All that he might have been, and, heart-sick, kneeling, + Sobs in the passion of a vast despair: + So my ideal self haunts me alway -- + When the accounting comes, how shall I pay? + + For in the dark I grope, nor understand; + And in my heart fight selfishness and sin: + Yet, Lord, I do not seek Thy helping hand; + Rather let me my own salvation win: + Let me through strife and penitential pain + Onward and upward to the heights attain. + + Yea, let me live my life, its meaning seek; + Bear myself fitly in the ringing fight; + Strive to be strong that I may aid the weak; + Dare to be true -- O God! the Light, the Light! + Cometh the Dark so soon. I've mocked Thy Word; + Yet do I know Thy Love: have mercy, Lord. . . . + + + + + FINIS + + + + + + +Some of Service's Books of Poetry: + + +The Spell of the Yukon (1907) a.k.a. Songs of a Sourdough +Ballads of a Cheechako (1909) + [Note: A Sourdough is an old-timer, while a Cheechako is a newbie.] +Rhymes of a Rolling Stone (1912) +Rhymes of a Red Cross Man (1916) +Ballads of a Bohemian (1921) +Bar-Room Ballads (1940) +The Complete Poems (1947?) [This is a compilation of the first six books.] +Songs of a Sunlover +Rhymes of a Roughneck +Lyrics of a Low Brow +Rhymes of a Rebel +The Collected Poems +Songs For My Supper (1953) +Rhymes For My Rags (1956) + + + +Some other books by Robert W. Service: + + +Novels: + +The Trail of '98 -- A Northland Romance (1910) +The Pretender +The Poisoned Paradise +The Roughneck +The Master of the Microbe +The House of Fear + + +Autobiography: + +Ploughman of the Moon (1945) +Harper of Heaven (1948) + + +Miscellaneous: + +Why not grow Young + + + + + + +End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of Rhymes of a Rolling Stone + + + + diff --git a/old/rolst10.zip b/old/rolst10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..89edcb7 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/rolst10.zip |