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CONTENTS OF FIRST LINES: To the Man of the High NorthMy rhymes are rough, and often in my rhymingMen of the High NorthMen of the High North, the wild sky is blazing;The Ballad of the Northern LightsOne of the Down and Out—that's me. Stare at me well, ay, stare!The Ballad of the Black Fox SkinThere was Claw-fingered Kitty and Windy Ike living the life of shame,The Ballad of Pious PeteI tried to refine that neighbor of mine, honest to God, I... more...

Foreword I've tinkered at my bits of rhymesIn weary, woeful, waiting times;In doleful hours of battle-din,Ere yet they brought the wounded in;Through vigils of the fateful night,In lousy barns by candle-light;In dug-outs, sagging and aflood,On stretchers stiff and bleared with blood;By ragged grove, by ruined road,By hearths accurst where Love abode;By broken altars, blackened shrinesI've tinkered at my bits of rhymes.I've solaced me with scraps... more...

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 divineInto 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... more...

THE LAW OF THE YUKON This is the law of the Yukon, and ever she makes it plain:"Send not your foolish and feeble; send me your strong and your sane.Strong for the red rage of battle; sane, for I harry them sore;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... more...

The Land God Forgot The lonely sunsets flare forlornDown valleys dreadly desolate;The lordly mountains soar in scornAs 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... more...

PRELUDE The north wind is keening overhead. It minds me of the howl of a wolf-dog under the Arctic stars. Sitting alone by the glow of the great peat fire I can hear it high up in the braeside firs. It is the voice, inexorably scornful, of the Great White Land. Oh, I hate it, I hate it! Why cannot a man be allowed to forget? It is near ten years since I joined the Eager Army. I have travelled: I have been a pilgrim to the shrines of beauty; I... more...