human
Can you write me a poem about le, yukon and drunk?
assistant
Sure, here's a poem about le, yukon and drunk:
  _"Songs from Overseas"_
_First Fifteen Impressions published in Canada
Twenty-first Impression,
Twenty-third Impression,
Twenty-fifth Impression,
Twenty-sixth Impression,
Twenty-ninth Impression,
Thirty-first Impression,
Thirty-third Impression,   1916_
(_All rights reserved_)
_The lonely sunsets flare forlorn
Down valleys dreadly desolate;
The lordly mountains soar in scorn,
As still as death, as stern as fate._
_The lonely sunsets flame and die;
The giant valleys gulp the night;
The monster mountains scrape the sky,
Where eager stars are diamond-bright._
_So gaunt against the gibbous moon,
Piercing the silence velvet-piled,
A lone wolf howls his ancient rune,
The fell arch-spirit of the Wild._
_O outcast land! O leper land!
Let the lone wolf-cry all express--
The hate insensate of thy hand,
Thy heart's abysmal loneliness._
This is the law of the Yukon, and ever she makes it plain:
Send me men girt for the combat, men who are grit to the core;
Swift as the panther in triumph, fierce as the bear in defeat,
Sired of a bulldog parent, steeled in the furnace heat.
Send me the best of your breeding, lend me your chosen ones;
Them will I take to my bosom, them will I call my sons;
Them will I gild with my treasure, them will I glut with my meat;
"Wild and wide are my borders, stern as death is my sway;
Hugging my mighty treasure, waiting for man to come:
One by one I weeded them out, for all that I sought was--Men.
One by one I dismayed them, frighting them sore with my glooms;
One by one I betrayed them unto my manifold dooms.
Drowned them like rats in my rivers, starved them like curs on my
Frozen stiff in the ice pack, brittle and bent like a bow;
Going outside with an escort, raving with lips all afoam;
Writing a cheque for a million, drivelling feebly of home;
Lost like a louse in the burning ... or else in tented town
Seeking a drunkard's solace, sinking and sinking down;
Steeped in the slime at the bottom, dead to a decent world,
Lost 'mid the human flotsam, far on the frontier hurled;
Plague-spots, yet tools of my purpose, so natheless I suffer them
Unto its ultimate issue, winning me honour, not shame;
Searching my uttermost valleys, fighting each step as they go,
Shooting the wrath of my rapids, scaling my ramparts of snow;
Ripping the guts of my mountains, looting the beds of my creeks,
Them will I take to my bosom, and speak as a mother speaks.
I am the land that listens, I am the land that broods;
Steeped in eternal beauty, crystalline waters and woods.
Long have I waited lonely, shunned as a thing accurst,
Monstrous, moody, pathetic, the last of the lands and the first;
Visioning camp-fires at twilight, sad with a longing forlorn,
Feeling my womb o'er-pregnant with the seed of cities unborn.
Wild and wide are my borders, stern as death is my sway,
"Lofty I stand from each sister land, patient and wearily wise,
When men shall not rape my riches, and curse me and go away;
Making a bawd of my bounty, fouling the hand that gave--
Dreaming of men who will bless me, of women esteeming me good,
Of children born in my borders, of radiant motherhood;
Of cities leaping to stature, of fame like a flag unfurled,
As I pour the tide of my riches in the eager lap of the world."
This is the Law of the Yukon, that only the Strong shall thrive;
That surely the Weak shall perish, and only the Fit survive.
"I'm one of the Arctic brotherhood, I'm an old-time pioneer.
I've followed my dreams by its thousand streams, I've toiled and
moiled for its gold.
Each one a brand of this devil's land, where I've played and I've
"This mining is only a gamble, the worst is as good as the best;
With Cormack, Ladue and Macdonald--O God! but it's hell to think
Of the thousands and thousands I've squandered on cards and women
Till sudden there came a whisper, and it maddened us every man,
And I got in on Bonanza before the big rush began.
(If God made me in His likeness, sure He let the devil inside.)
But we all were mad, both the good and the bad, and as for the
women, well--
"Money was just like dirt there, easy to get and to spend.
"Twenty years in the Yukon, struggling along its creeks;
Roaming its giant valleys, scaling its god-like peaks;
Bathed in its fiery sunsets, fighting its fiendish cold,
Twenty years in the Yukon ... twenty years--and I'm old.
"... Come, Kit, your pony is saddled. I'm waiting, dear, in the
... Minnie, you devil, I'll kill you if you skip with that flossy
... How much does it go to the pan, Bill?... play up, School, and
... Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name ..."
ceased to moan,
And the hunger-maddened malamutes had torn him flesh from bone._
I wanted the gold, and I sought it;
I scrabbled and mucked like a slave.
Was it famine or scurvy--I fought it,
I hurled my youth into the grave.
I wanted the gold and I got it--
Came out with a fortune last fall,--
Yet somehow life's not what I thought it,
And somehow the gold isn't all.
No! There's the land. (Have you seen it?)
It's the cussedest land that I know,
From the big, dizzy mountains that screen it,
To the deep, deathlike valleys below.
Some say God was tired when He made it;
Some say it's a fine land to shun;
Maybe: but there's some as would trade it
For no land on earth--and I'm one.
You come to get rich (damned good reason),
You feel like an exile at first;
You hate it like hell for a season,
And then you are worse than the worst.
It grips you like some kinds of sinning;
It twists you from foe to a friend;
It seems it's been since the beginning;
It seems it will be to the end.
I've stood in some mighty-mouthed hollow
That's plumb-full of hush to the brim;
I've watched the big, husky sun wallow
In crimson and gold, and grow dim,
Till the moon set the pearly peaks gleaming,
And the stars tumbled out, neck and crop;
And I've thought that I surely was dreaming,
With the peace o' the world piled on top.
The summer--no sweeter was ever;
The sunshiny woods all athrill;
The grayling aleap in the river,
The bighorn asleep on the hill.
The strong life that never knows harness;
The wilds where the caribou call;
The freshness, the freedom, the farness--
O God! how I'm stuck on it all.
The winter! the brightness that blinds you,
The white land locked tight as a drum,
The cold fear that follows and finds you,
The snows that are older than history,
The woods where the weird shadows slant;
The stillness, the moonlight, the mystery,
I've bade 'em good-bye--but I can't.
There's a land where the mountains are nameless,
And the rivers all run God knows where;
There are lives that are erring and aimless,
And deaths that just hang by a hair;
There are hardships that nobody reckons;
There are valleys unpeopled and still;
There's a land--oh, it beckons and beckons,
And I want to go back--and I will.
They're making my money diminish;
I'm sick of the taste of champagne.
Thank God! when I'm skinned to a finish
I'll pike to the Yukon again.
I'll fight--and you bet it's no sham-fight;
It's hell!--but I've been there before;
And it's better than this by a damsite--
So me for the Yukon once more.
There's gold, and it's haunting and haunting;
It's luring me on as of old;
Yet it isn't the gold that I'm wanting,
So much as just finding the gold.
It's the great, big, broad land 'way up yonder,
It's the forests where silence has lease;
It's the beauty that thrills me with wonder,
It's the stillness that fills me with peace.
Searched the Vastness for a something you have lost?
Have you wandered in the wilderness, the sage-brush desolation,
The bunch-grass levels where the cattle graze?
Have you whistled bits of rag-time at the end of all creation,
And learned to know the desert's little ways?
Have you known the Great White Silence, not a snow-gemmed twig
a-quiver?
(Eternal truths that shame our soothing lies.)
Have you suffered, starved, and triumphed grovelled, down, yet
grasped at glory,
Grown bigger in the bigness of the whole?
Have you seen God in His splendours, heard the text that nature
renders?
(You'll never hear it in the family pew.)
They have cradled you in custom, they have primed you with their
preaching,
They have soaked you in convention through and through;
Let us probe the silent places, let us seek what luck betide us;
Let us journey to a lonely land I know.
_Ye who know the Lone Trail fain would follow it,
Though it lead to glory or the darkness of the pit.
Ye who take the Lone Trail, bid your love good-bye;
The Lone Trail, the Lone Trail follow till you die._
divide;
camp-fire,
And you gnaw your belt in the anguish of hunger-goaded desire.
And sometimes it leads to the Southland, to the swamp where the
orchid glows,
Often it leads to the dead-pit; always it leads to pain;
By your bones they will follow behind you, till the ways of the
world are made plain.
_Bid good-bye to sweetheart, bid good-bye to friend;
The Lone Trail, the Lone Trail follow to the end.
Tarry not, and fear not, chosen of the true;
Lover of the Lone Trail, the Lone Trail waits for you._
There where the mighty mountains bare their fangs unto the moon;
timeless things;
And to-night, O God of the trails untrod, how it whines in my
heart-strings!
I have flouted the Wild. I have followed its lure, fearless,
familiar, alone;
Even as lean wolf-dog goes down will I go down and die.
The waves have a story to tell me,
As I lie on the lonely beach;
Chanting aloft in the pine-tops,
The wind has a lesson to teach;
But the stars sing an anthem of glory
I cannot put into speech.
The waves tell of ocean spaces,
Of hearts that are wild and brave,
Of populous city places,
Of desolate shores they lave;
Of men who sally in quest of gold
To sink in an ocean grave.
The wind is a mighty roamer;
He bids me keep me free,
Clean from the taint of the gold-lust,
Hardy and pure as he;
Cling with my love to nature
As a child to the mother-knee.
But the stars throng out in their glory,
And they sing of the God in man;
They sing of the mighty Master,
Of the loom His fingers span;
Where a star or a soul is a part of the whole,
And weft in the wondrous plan.
Here by the camp-fire's flicker,
Deep in my blanket curled,
I long for the peace of the pine-gloom
When the scroll of the Lord is unfurled,
And the wind and the wave are silent,
And world is singing to world.
We sleep in the sleep of ages, the bleak, barbarian pines;
The grey moss drapes us like sages, and closer we lock our lines,
On the flanks of the storm-gored ridges are our black battalions
massed;
To us was the Northland given, ours to stronghold and defend;
Ours till the world be riven in the crash of the utter end.
Ours through the twilight ages of weary glacier-creep.
Wind of the East, wind of the West, wandering to and fro,
From the white foam-fringe where the breakers cringe to the peaks
We climb, and we peer in the crag-locked mere that gleams like a
golden eye,--
Sun, moon and stars, give answer; shall we not staunchly stand
Even as now, forever, wards of the wilder strand,
Sentinels of the stillness, lords of the last lone land!
_There was a woman, and she was wise; woefully wise was she;
There is no hope for such as I, on earth nor yet in Heaven;
Unloved I live, unloved I die, unpitied, unforgiven;
A loathèd jade I ply my trade, unhallowed and unshriven.
With overhead a lamp of red I sit me down and wait.
Until they come, the nightly scum, with drunken eyes aflame;
For life is not the thing we thought, and not the thing we plan;
And woman in a bitter world must do the best she can;
Must serve his need and ever feed the flame of his desire;
Though be she loved for love alone, or be she loved for hire;
For every man since life began is tainted with the mire.
And though you know he love you so, and set you on love's throne,
And 'tis not wise to love too well, and this all women know.
Wherefore, the wolf-pack having gorged upon the lamb, their prey,
With velvet paws and flensing claws, a tigress roused to slay.
One who in youth sought truest truth, and found a devil's lies;
A symbol of the sin of man, a human sacrifice:
Yet shall I blame on man the shame? Could it be otherwise?
Was I not born to walk in scorn where others walk in pride?
The Maker marred, and evil-starred I drift upon His tide;
And He alone shall judge His own, so I His judgment bide.
_Fate has written a tragedy; its name is "The Human Heart."
The theatre is the House of Life, Woman the mummer's part:
There's a cry from out the Loneliness--Oh, listen, Honey, listen!
You're a-sobbing in your sleep, dear, and your lashes, how they
glisten--
Do you hear the Little Voices all a-begging me to go?
plain;
They miss my little camp-fires, ever brightly, bravely gleaming
In the womb of desolation where was never man before;
As comradeless I sought them, lion-hearted, loving, dreaming;
And they hailed me as a comrade, and they loved me evermore.
And now they're all a-crying, and it's no use me denying:
The spell of them is on me and I'm helpless as a child;
My heart is aching, aching, but I hear them sleeping, waking;
It's the Lure of Little Voices, it's the mandate of the Wild.
I'm afraid to tell you, Honey, I can take no bitter leaving;
But softly in the sleep-time from your love I'll steal away.
Look at my face, toil-furrowed; look at my calloused hands;
Master, I've done Thy bidding, wrought in Thy many lands--
Wrought for the little masters, big-bellied they be, and rich;
And now, Big Master, I'm broken and bent and twisted and scarred,
Thou knowest my sins are many, and often I've played the fool--
Whiskey and cards and women, they made me the devil's tool.
I was just like a child with money: I flung it away with a curse,
Then back to the woods repentant, back to the mill or the mine,
I, the worker of workers, everything in my line.
Everything hard but headwork (I'd no more brains than a kid),
A brute with brute strength to labour, doing as I was bid;
Living in camps with men-folk, a lonely and loveless life;
Never knew kiss of sweetheart, never caress of wife.
Down in the ditch building o'er me palaces fairer than dreams;
Boring the rock to the ore-bed, driving the road through the fen,
Master, I've filled my contract, wrought in Thy many lands;
Not by my sins wilt Thou judge me, but by the work of my hands.
Master, I've done Thy bidding, and the light is low in the west,
If you're up against a bruiser and you're getting knocked about--
Don't let him see you're funking, let him know with every clout,
And grin.
This life's a bally battle, and the same advice holds true,
Of grin.
If you're up against it badly, then it's only one on you,
So grin.
You may--grin.
Rise up in the morning with the will that, smooth or rough,
You'll grin.
Sink to sleep at midnight, and although you're feeling tough,
Yet grin.
Your trouble is that you don't know when you have had enough--
Don't give in.
If Fate should down you, just get up and take another cuff;
You may bank on it that there is no philosophy like bluff
And grin.
A bunch of the boys were whooping it up in the Malamute saloon;
The kid that handles the music-box was hitting a jag-time tune;
Back of the bar, in a solo game, sat Dangerous Dan McGrew,
He looked like a man with a foot in the grave, and scarcely the
strength of a louse,
Yet he tilted a poke of dust on the bar, and he called for drinks
But we drank his health, and the last to drink was Dangerous Dan
McGrew.
There's men that somehow just grip your eyes, and hold them hard
like a spell;
Then I got to figgering who he was, and wondering what he'd do,
And I turned my head--and there watching him was the lady that's
known as Lou.
called gold;
But oh! so cramful of cosy joy, and crowned with a woman's love;
A woman dearer than all the world, and true as Heaven is true--
(God! how ghastly she looks through her rouge,--the lady that's
known as Lou.)
once held dear;
That some one had stolen the woman you loved; that her love was a
'Twas the crowning cry of a heart's despair, and it thrilled you
through and through--
The thought came back of an ancient wrong, and it stung like a
frozen lash,
denying it's so.
I'm not so wise as the lawyer guys, but strictly between us two--
_There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee._
Though he'd often say in his homely way that he'd "sooner live in
On a Christmas Day we were mushing our way over the Dawson trail.
If our eyes we'd close, then the lashes froze, till sometimes we
couldn't see;
It wasn't much fun, but the only one to whimper was Sam McGee.
"It's the cursèd cold, and it's got right hold till I'm chilled
clean through to the bone.
He crouched on the sleigh, and he raved all day of his home in
And before nightfall a corpse was all that was left of Sam McGee.
But you promised true, and it's up to you to cremate those last
remains."
cursed that load.
Howled out their woes to the homeless snows--O God! how I loathed
And every day that quiet clay seemed to heavy and heavier grow;
Then, "Here," said I, with a sudden cry, "is my cre-ma-tor-eum."
seldom see;
Then I made a hike, for I didn't like to hear him sizzle so;
It was icy cold, but the hot sweat rolled down my cheeks, and I
don't know why;
I do not know how long in the snow I wrestled with grisly fear;
I guess he's cooked, and it's time I looked," ... then the door I
And there sat Sam, looking cool and calm, in the heart of the
furnace roar;
It's fine in here, but I greatly fear you'll let in the cold and
_There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee._
I haled me a woman from the street,
Shameless, but, oh, so fair!
I bade her sit in the model's seat,
And I painted her sitting there.
I hid all trace of her heart unclean;
I painted a babe at her breast;
I painted her as she might have been
If the Worst had been the Best.
She laughed at my picture, and went away.
Then came, with a knowing nod,
A connoisseur, and I heard him say:
So I painted a halo round her hair,
And I sold her, and took my fee,
And she hangs in the church of Saint Hilaire,
Where you and all may see.
I know a garden where the lilies gleam,
And one who lingers in the sunshine there;
She is than white-stoled lily far more fair,
And oh, her eyes are heaven-lit with dream.
I know a garret, cold and dark and drear,
And one who toils and toils with tireless pen,
Until his brave, sad eyes grow weary--then
He seeks the stars, pale, silent as a seer.
And ah, it's strange, for desolate and dim
Between these two there rolls an ocean wide;
Yet he is in the garden by her side,
And she is in the garret there with him.
It's fine to have a blow-out in a fancy restaurant,
With terrapin and canvas-back and all the wine you want;
To enjoy the flowers and music, watch the pretty women pass,
Smoke a choice cigar, and sip the wealthy water in your glass;
It's bully in a high-toned joint to eat and drink your fill,
But it's quite another matter when you
Pay the bill.
It's great to go out every night on fun or pleasure bent,
To wear your glad rags always, and to never save a cent;
To drift along regardless, have a good time every trip;
To hit the high spots sometimes, and to let your chances slip;
To know you're acting foolish, yet to go on fooling still,
Till Nature calls a show-down, and you
Pay the bill.
Time has got a little bill--get wise while yet you may,
For the debit side's increasing in a most alarming way;
So eat, drink, and be merry, have a good time if you will,
But God help you when the time comes, and you
Foot the bill.
One said: Thy life is thine to make or mar,
To flicker feebly, or to soar, a star;
It lies with thee--the choice is thine, is thine,
To hit the ties or drive thy auto-car.
I answer Her: The choice is mine--ah, no!
We all were made or marred long, long ago.
The parts are written: hear the super wail:
"Who is stage-managing this cosmic show?"
Blind fools of fate, and slaves of circumstance,
Life is a fiddler, and we all must dance.
From gloom where mocks that will-o'-wisp, Freewill,
I heard a voice cry: "Say, give us a chance."
Chance! Oh, there is no chance. The scene is set.
Up with the curtain! Man, the marionette,
Resumes his part. The gods will work the wires.
They've got it all down fine, you bet, you bet!
It's all decreed: the mighty earthquake crash;
The countless constellations' wheel and flash;
The rise and fall of empires, war's red tide,
The composition of your dinner hash.
There's no haphazard in this world of ours:
Cause and effect are grim, relentless powers.
They rule the world. (A king was shot last night.
Last night I held the joker and both bowers.)
From out the mesh of fate our heads we thrust.
We can't do what we would, but what we must.
Heredity has got us in a cinch.
(Consoling thought, when you've been on a "bust.")
Hark to the song where spheral voices blend:
"There's no beginning, never will be end."
It makes us nutty; hang the astral chimes!
The table's spread; come, let us dine, my friend.
There's a race of men that don't fit in,
A race that can't stay still;
So they break the hearts of kith and kin,
And they roam the world at will.
They range the field and they rove the flood,
And they climb the mountain's crest;
Theirs is the curse of the gipsy blood,
And they don't know how to rest.
If they just went straight they might go far;
They are strong and brave and true;
But they're always tired of the things that are,
And they want the strange and new.
They say: "Could I find my proper groove,
What a deep mark I would make!"
So they chop and change, and each fresh move
Is only a fresh mistake.
And each forgets, as he strips and runs,
With a brilliant, fitful pace,
It's the steady, quiet, plodding ones
Who win in the lifelong race.
And each forgets that his youth has fled,
Forgets that his prime is past,
Till he stands one day with a hope that's dead
In the glare of the truth at last.
He has failed, he has failed; he has missed his chance;
He has just done things by half.
Life's been a jolly good joke on him,
And now is the time to laugh.
He was never meant to win;
He's a rolling stone, and it's bred in the bone;
He's a man who won't fit in.
O'er the dark pines she sees the silver moon,
And in the west, all tremulous, a star;
And soothing sweet she hears the mellow tune
Of cow-bells jangled in the fields afar.
Quite listless, for her daily stent is done,
She stands, sad exile, at her rose-wreathed door,
And sends her love eternal with the sun
That goes to gild the land she'll see no more.
The grave, gaunt pines imprison her sad gaze,
All still the sky and darkling drearily;
She feels the chilly breath of dear, dead days
Come sifting through the alders eerily.
Oh, how the roses riot in their bloom!
The curtains stir as with an ancient pain;
Her old piano gleams from out the gloom,
And waits and waits her tender touch in vain.
But now her hands like moonlight brush the keys
With velvet grace, melodious delight;
And now a sad refrain from overseas
Goes sobbing on the bosom of the night.
And now she sings. (O singer in the gloom,
Voicing a sorrow we can ne'er express,
Here in the Farness where we few have room
Unshamed to show our love and tenderness,
Our hearts will echo, till they beat no more,
That song of sadness and of motherland;
And stretched in deathless love to England's shore,
Some day she'll hearken and she'll understand.)
A prima-donna in the shining past,
But now a mother growing old and grey,
She thinks of how she held a people fast
In thrall, and gleaned the triumphs of a day.
She sees a sea of faces like a dream;
She sees herself a queen of song once more;
She sees lips part in rapture, eyes agleam;
She sings as never once she sang before.
She sings a wild, sweet song that throbs with pain,
The added pain of life that transcends art,
A song of home, a deep, celestial strain,
The glorious swan-song of a dying heart.
A lame tramp comes along the railway track,
A grizzled dog whose day is nearly done:
He passes, pauses, then comes slowly back
And listens there--an audience of one.
She sings--her golden voice is passion-fraught
As when she charmed a thousand eager ears;
He listens trembling, and she knows it not,
And down his hollow cheeks roll bitter tears.
She ceases and is still, as if to pray;
There is no sound, the stars are all alight--
Only a wretch who stumbles on his way,
Only a vagrant sobbing in the night.
There's a four-pronged buck a-swinging in the shadow of my cabin,
But I tracked it by the river, and I trailed it in the cover,
And I killed it on the mountain miles away.
Now I've had my lazy supper, and the level sun is gleaming
On the water where the silver salmon play;
And I light my little corn-cob, and I linger softly dreaming,
In the twilight, of a land that's far away.
Far away, so faint and far, is flaming London, fevered Paris,
That I fancy I have gained another star;
Far away the din and hurry, far away the sin and worry,
Far away--God knows they cannot be too far.
Starved my soul and gone to business every day.
I can couch me deep in clover, I can listen to the story
Of the lazy, lapping water--it is best.
And the frozen snow betrays the panther's track,
And the robin greets the dayspring with the rapture of a lover,
I am happy, and I'll nevermore go back.
For I know I'd just be longing for the little old log cabin,
With the morning-glory clinging to the door,
Till I loathed the city places, cursed the care on all the faces,
So send me far from Lombard Street, and write me down a failure;
Put a little in my purse and leave me free.
Say: "He turned from Fortune's offering to follow up a pale lure,
I am one of you no longer: by the trails my feet have broken,
The dizzy peaks I've scaled, the camp-fire's glow,
By the lonely seas I've sailed in--yea, the final word is spoken,
klooch to town,
And I know at the dawn she'll come reeling home with the bottles,
One for herself to drown her shame, and two big bottles for me,
To make me forget the thing I am and the man I used to be.
Oh, I have guarded my secret well! And who would dream as I speak
I could roll to bed with a Latin phrase, and rise with a verse of
But I'm not dead yet; though with half a lung there isn't time to
And I hope that the year will see me out, and, thank God, no one
will care--
She will come with the dawn, and the dawn is near; I can see its
evil glow,
Like a corpse-light seen through a frosty pane in a night of want
And yonder she comes, by the bleak bull-pines, swift staggering
through the snow.
When a man gits on his uppers in a hard-pan sort of town,
An' he ain't got nothin' comin', an' he can't afford ter eat,
An' he's in a fix fer lodgin', an' he wanders up an' down,
An' you'd fancy he'd been boozin', he's so locoed 'bout the feet;
An' his face is peaked an' grey-like, an' his heart gits down an'
Then he's apt ter git a-thinkin' an' a-wishin' he was back
In the little ol' log cabin in the shadder of the pines.
When he's on the blazin' desert, an' his canteen's sprung a leak,
Then he's like ter hev' a vision, as he settles down ter die,
Of the little ol' log cabin an' the roses an' the vines.
Oh, the little ol' log cabin, it's a solemn shinin' mark
When a feller gits ter sinnin', an' a-goin' ter the wall,
An' folks don't understand him, an' he's gropin' in the dark,
An' he's sick of bein' cursed at, an' he's longin' fer his call:
When the sun of life's a-sinkin' you can see it 'way above,
On the hill from out the shadder in a glory 'gin the sky,
An' never leave its shelter, an' forget, an' love, an' rest.
If you leave the gloom of London and you seek a glowing land,
Where all except the flag is strange and new,
For he's your younger brother, the one you sent away,
Because there wasn't room for him at home;
And now he's quite contented, and he's glad he didn't stay,
And he's building Britain's greatness o'er the foam.
When the giant herd is moving at the rising of the sun,
And the prairie is lit with rose and gold;
And the camp is all a-bustle, and the busy day's begun,
He leaps into the saddle sure and bold.
And when the night-winds whisper, and camp-fires flicker out,
He is sleeping like a child beneath the stars.
When the wattle-blooms are drooping in the sombre she-oak glade,
And the breathless land is lying in a swoon,
And he hears the bell-bird chime the Austral noon.
The parakeets are silent in the gum-tree by the creek;
The ferny grove is sunshine-steeped and still;
But the dew will gem the myrtle in the twilight ere he seek
His little lonely cabin on the hill.
Around the purple, vine-clad slope the argent river dreams;
The roses almost hide the house from view;
A snow-peak of the Winterberg in crimson splendour gleams;
The shadow deepens down on the karroo.
He seeks the lily-scented dusk beneath the orange-tree:
His pipe in silence glows and fades and glows,
And then two little maids come out and climb upon his knee,
And one is like the lily, one the rose.
He sees his white sheep dapple o'er the green New Zealand plain,
And where Vancouver's shaggy ramparts frown,
You will find him toiling, toiling, in the south or in the west,
A child of nature, fearless, frank and free;
You've a brother in the Army, you've another in the Church;
One of you is a diplomatic swell;
You've had the pick of everything and left him in the lurch;
And yet I think he's doing very well.
I'm sure his life is happy, and he doesn't envy yours;
I know he loves the land his pluck has won;
And I fancy in the years unborn, while England's fame endures,
She will come to bless with pride--the Younger Son.
The cruel war was over--oh, the triumph was so sweet!
We watched the troops returning, through our tears;
And you scarce could see the house-tops for the flags that flew
between,
The bells were pealing madly to the sky;
And every one was shouting for the Soldiers of the Queen,
And the glory of an age was passing by.
And then there came a shadow, swift and sudden, dark and drear;
The bells were silent, not an echo stirred.
The flags were drooping sullenly, the men forgot to cheer;
We waited, and we never spoke a word.
The sky grew darker, darker, till from out the gloomy rack
There came a voice that checked the heart with dread:
"Tear down, tear down your bunting now, and hang up sable black;
They are coming--it's the Army of the Dead."
Oh, the clammy brow of anguish! the livid, foam-flecked lips!
The reeling ranks of ruin swept along!
"They left us on the veldt-side, but we felt we couldn't stop,
On this, our England's crowning festal day;
We're the men of Magersfontein, we're the men of Spion Kop,
Colenso,--we're the men who had to pay.
You owe us. Long and heavy is the score.
Then cheer us for our glory now, and cheer us for our pain,
And cheer us as ye never cheered before."
The folks were white and stricken, and each tongue seemed weighed
Each heart was clutched in hollow hand of ice;
And every eye was staring at the horror of the dead,
The pity of the men who paid the price.
They were coming in their thousands--oh, would they never cease!
I closed my eyes, and then--it was a dream.
A thousand flags were flaming where the sky and city meet;
A thousand bells were thundering the joy.
O God, in Thy great mercy, let us nevermore forget
The graves they left behind, the bitter graves.
A pistol-shot rings round and round the world:
In pitiful defeat a warrior lies.
A last defiance to dark Death is hurled,
A last wild challenge shocks the sunlit skies.
Alone he falls with wide, wan, woeful eyes:
Eyes that could smile at death--could not face shame.
Alone, alone he paced his narrow room,
In the bright sunshine of that Paris day;
Saw in his thought the awful hand of doom;
Saw in his dream his glory pass away;
Tried in his heart, his weary heart, to pray:
"O God! who made me, give me strength to face
The spectre of this bitter, black disgrace."
The burn brawls darkly down the shaggy glen,
The bee-kissed heather blooms around the door;
He sees himself a barefoot boy again,
Bending o'er page of legendary lore.
He hears the pibroch, grips the red claymore,
Runs with the Fiery Cross a clansman true,
Sworn kinsman of Rob Roy and Roderick Dhu.
Eating his heart out with a wild desire,
One day, behind his counter trim and neat,
He hears a sound that sets his brain afire--
The Highlanders are marching down the street.
Oh, how the pipes shrill out, the mad drums beat!
"On to the gates of Hell, my Gordons gay!"
He flings his hated yardstick far away.
He sees the sullen pass, high-crowned with snow,
Where Afghans cower with eyes of gleaming hate.
He hurls himself against the hidden foe.
They try to rally--ah, too late, too late!
Again, defenceless, with fierce eyes that wait
For death, he stands, like baited bull at bay,
And flouts the Boers, that mad Majuba day.
He sees again the murderous Soudan,
Blood-slaked and rapine swept. He seems to stand
Upon the gory plain of Omdurman.
Then Magersfontein, and supreme command
Over his Highlanders. To shake his hand
A King is proud, and princes call him friend,
And glory crowns his life--and now the end.
The awful end. His eyes are dark with doom;
He hears the shrapnel shrieking overhead:
He sees the ravaged ranks, the flame-stabbed gloom.
Oh, to have fallen! the battle-field his bed,
With Wauchope and his glorious brother-dead.
Why was he saved for this, for this? And now
He raises the revolver to his brow.
In many a Highland home, framed with rude art,
You'll find his portrait, rough-hewn, stern and square:
It's graven in the Fuyam fellah's heart;
The Ghurka reads it at his evening prayer;
The raw lands know it, where the fierce suns glare;
The Dervish fears it. Honour to his name,
Who holds aloft the shield of England's fame.
Mourn for our hero, men of Northern race!
We do not know his sin; we only know
His sword was keen. He laughed death in the face,
And struck, for Empire's sake, a giant blow.
His arm was strong. Ah! well they learnt, the foe.
The echo of his deeds is ringing yet,
Will ring for aye. All else ... let us forget.
An angel was tired of heaven, as he lounged in the golden street;
So the Master stooped in His pity, and gave him a pass to go,
The sexless singers of heaven chanted a fond farewell,
Never was seen such an angel: eyes of a heavenly blue,
Features that shamed Apollo, hair of a golden hue;
The women simply adored him, his lips were like Cupid's bow;
But he never ventured to use them--and so they voted him slow.
Till at last there came One Woman, a marvel of loveliness,
And she whispered to him: "Do you love me?" And he answered that
over-tight thong,
The ancient, outworn, puritanic traditions of Right and Wrong."
"The ancient, outworn, puritanic traditions of Right and Wrong."
We couldn't sit and study for the law;
The stagnation of a bank we couldn't stand;
For our riot blood was surging, and we didn't need much urging
To excitements and excesses that are banned.
So we took to wine and drink and other things,
And the devil in us struggled to be free;
Till our friends rose up in wrath, and they pointed out the path,
Oh, they shook us off and shipped us o'er the foam,
To the larger lands that lure a man to roam;
And we took the chance they gave
Of a far and foreign grave,
And we bade goodbye for evermore to home.
And some of us are climbing on the peak,
And some of us are camping on the plain;
By pine and palm you'll find us, with never claim to bind us,
By track and trail you'll meet us once again.
We are fated serfs to freedom--sky and sea;
We have failed where slummy cities overflow;
But the stranger ways of earth know our pride and know our worth,
Yes, we go into the night as brave men go,
Though our faces they be often streaked with woe;
Yet we're hard as cats to kill,
And our hearts are reckless still,
And we've danced with death a dozen times or so.
And you'll find us in Alaska after gold,
And you'll find us herding cattle in the South.
We like strong drink and fun; and when the race is run,
We often die with curses in our mouth.
We are wild as colts unbroke, but never mean;
Of our sins we've shoulders broad to bear the blame;
But we'll never stay in town, and we'll never settle down,
And we'll never have an object or an aim.
No, there's that in us that time can never tame;
And life will always seem a careless game;
And they'd better far forget--
Those who say they love us yet--
Forget, blot out with bitterness our name.
It's cruel cold on the water-front, silent and dark and drear;
Only the black tide weltering, only the hissing snow;
Shuffling along in the icy wind, ghastly and gaunt and slow.
They're playing a tune in McGuffy's saloon, and it's cheery and
bright in there
McGuffy is showing a bunch of the boys how Bob Fitzsimmons hit;
The barman is talking of Tammany Hall, and why the ward boss got
fired;
I'll just sneak into a corner, and they'll let me alone a bit;
The room is reeling round and round ... O God, but I'm tired, I'm
to see
And I held her fast to my throbbing heart, and I kissed her bonny
Don't you remember that long, last waltz, with its sobbing, sad
refrain?
Don't you remember that last goodbye, and the dear eyes dim with
tears?
Don't you remember that golden dream, with never a hint of pain,
Of lives that would blend like an angel-song in the bliss of the
coming year?
Oh, what have I lost! What have I lost! Ethel, forgive, forgive!
The red, red rose is faded now, and it's fifty years ago.
suffered so!
dreadful hum
Say! ain't you got no sentiment? Lift up your muddled head;
Have a drink to the glad New Year, a drop before you go--
You darned old dirty hobo ... My God! Here, boys! He's DEAD!"
Say! You've struck a heap of trouble--
Bust in business, lost your wife;
No one cares a cent about you,
You don't care a cent for life;
Hard luck has of hope bereft you,
Health is failing, wish you'd die--
Why, you've still the sunshine left you,
And the big, blue sky.
Sky so blue it makes you wonder
If it's heaven shining through;
Earth so smiling 'way out yonder,
Sun so bright it dazzles you;
Birds a-singing, flowers a-flinging
All their fragrance on the breeze;
Dancing shadows, green, still meadows--
Don't you mope, you've still got these.
These, and none can take them from you;
These, and none can weigh their worth.
What! you're tired and broke and beaten?--
Why, you're rich--you've got the earth!
Yes, if you're a tramp in tatters,
While the blue sky bends above,
You've got nearly all that matters,
You've got God, and God is love.
'Twas a year ago and the moon was bright
(Oh, I remember so well, so well),
I walked with my love in a sea of light,
And the voice of my sweet was a silver bell.
And sudden the moon grew strangely dull,
And sudden my love had taken wing;
I looked on the face of a grinning skull,
I strained to my heart a ghastly thing.
'Twas but fantasy, for my love lay still
In my arms with her tender eyes aglow,
And she wondered why my lips were chill,
Why I was silent and kissed her so.
A year has gone and the moon is bright,
A gibbous moon like a ghost of woe;
I sit by a new-made grave to-night,
And my heart is broken--it's strange, you know.
Along the road to Anywhere, when each day had its story;
When time was yet our vassal, and life's jest was still unstale;
Alas! the road to Anywhere is pitfalled with disaster;
There's hunger, want, and weariness, yet O we loved it so!
As on we tramped exultantly, and no man was our master,
The tragic road to Anywhere, such dear, dim years ago.
_You who have lived in the Land,
You who have trusted the trail;
You who are strong to withstand,
You who are swift to assail;
Songs have I sung to beguile,
Vintage of desperate years
Hard as a harlot's smile,
Bitter as unshed tears._
_Little of joy or mirth,
Little of ease I sing;
Sagas of men of earth,
Humanly suffering,
Such as you all have done;
Savagely faring forth,
Sons of the midnight sun,
_Far in the land God forgot
Glimmers the lure of your trail;
Still in your lust are you taught
Even to win is to fail.
Still must you follow and fight
Under the vampire wing;
There in the long, long night
Hoping and vanquishing._
Reaping a barren gain;
Scourged by desire, reconciled
Unto disaster and pain;
These my songs are for you,
You who are seared with the brand:
God knows I have tried to be true;
Please God you will understand._