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 HoyleTo 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 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 foundA-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'sWELL.
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 menWith 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 handThat 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 meOf 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 befellThe 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 eatI 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 seemsYou missed the point: the point is thatthe "doctor chap" . . . wasME. . . .
"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 waysWent 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.
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 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 youWhen you answer the cueOf 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 cureWhen you list to the lureOf the Wan-der-lust.The Wanderlust has taught me . . . it has whispered to my heartThings 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 canEAT,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 allWhen you answer the callOf 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 denyWhen you hark to the cryOf 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 doubtThat my soul will leap outOn its Wan-der-lust.
It's mighty lonesome-like and drear.Above the Wild the moon rides high,And shows up sharp and needle-clearThe 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 alightBeside the cabin-fire, it's queerThis mind of mine must take to-nightThe 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,LASTgood-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 stillLies 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.
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 soWe'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 fliesCould drift no hair-breadth otherwise.What is, must be; with rhythmic lawsAll 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 beImmortal 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 gropeFor Truth that lies beyond our scope:A sober plot informeth allOf 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 swingThe 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 placeI've served the uplift of the Race.Truth! Beauty! Love! O Radiant Day —What ho! the World's all right, I say.
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 sheThat 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 oneTheir 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 sluiceHis 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 defalcateThe 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 slickThe Syndicate sold out too soon, and Chewed-ear turned the trick.
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 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 holdAll 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 creptInto his ragged robe, and swiftly slept..   .   .   .   .Hour after hour went by; a shadow slippedFrom 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 gleamShowed 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 bringTheir 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 creepVast 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 uponHis 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 creptThrough 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 strokeSwung 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 upstartA 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 goldA GAUNT AND HAIRY MAN WITH WOLFISH EYES.
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 reachThe Great Divide of Thirty-five.And looking back I must confessI'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 sunBy 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 bookAs absolute as Holy Writ;We humbly read, and may not lookAhead, 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 remainsWhen 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 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 aroundI 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 knowMy 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 killA 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 bandThe 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,EMPTYbirch 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 nightAs 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.