The Spell of the Yukon and Other Verses

Excerpt

The Land God Forgot

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.

Contents with First Lines:


The Land God Forgot
The lonely sunsets flare forlorn,

The Spell of the Yukon
I wanted the gold, and I sought it,

The Heart of the Sourdough
There where the mighty mountains bare their fangs unto the moon,

The Three Voices
The waves have a story to tell me,

The Law of the Yukon
This is the law of the Yukon, and ever she makes it plain,

The Parson's Son
This is the song of the parson's son, as he squats in his shack alone,

The Call of the Wild
Have you gazed on naked grandeur where there's nothing else to gaze on,

The Lone Trail
Ye who know the Lone Trail fain would follow it,

The Pines
We sleep in the sleep of ages, the bleak, barbarian pines,

The Lure of Little Voices
There's a cry from out the loneliness — oh, listen, Honey, listen!

The Song of the Wage-Slave
When the long, long day is over, and the Big Boss gives me my pay,

Grin
If you're up against a bruiser and you're getting knocked about,

The Shooting of Dan McGrew
A bunch of the boys were whooping it up in the Malamute saloon,

The Cremation of Sam McGee
There are strange things done in the midnight sun,

My Madonna
I haled me a woman from the street,

Unforgotten
I know a garden where the lilies gleam,

The Reckoning
It's fine to have a blow-out in a fancy restaurant,

Quatrains
One said: Thy life is thine to make or mar,

The Men That Don't Fit In
There's a race of men that don't fit in,

Music in the Bush
O'er the dark pines she sees the silver moon,

The Rhyme of the Remittance Man
There's a four-pronged buck a-swinging in the shadow of my cabin,

The Low-Down White
This is the pay-day up at the mines, when the bearded brutes come down,

The Little Old Log Cabin
When a man gets on his uppers in a hard-pan sort of town,

The Younger Son
If you leave the gloom of London and you seek a glowing land,

The March of the Dead
The cruel war was over — oh, the triumph was so sweet,

"Fighting Mac"
A pistol shot rings round and round the world,

The Woman and the Angel
An angel was tired of heaven, as he lounged in the golden street,

The Rhyme of the Restless Ones
We couldn't sit and study for the law,

New Year's Eve
It's cruel cold on the water-front, silent and dark and drear,

Comfort
Say! You've struck a heap of trouble,

The Harpy
There was a woman, and she was wise; woefully wise was she,

Premonition
'Twas a year ago, and the moon was bright,

The Tramps
Can you recall, dear comrade, when we tramped God's land together,

L'Envoi
You who have lived in the land,

I wanted the gold, and I sought it,
I scrabbled and mucked like a slave....