Ballads of a Cheechako | Page 3

broken according to metre,?and the continuation is indented two spaces.?This etext was transcribed from an American 1909 edition.]
Ballads of a Cheechako?by?Robert W. Service
Author of "The Spell of the Yukon"
Contents
To the Man of the High North?My rhymes are rough, and often in my rhyming
Men of the High North?Men of the High North, the wild sky is blazing;
The Ballad of the Northern Lights?One of the Down and Out--that's me. Stare at me well, ay, stare!
The Ballad of the Black Fox Skin?There was Claw-fingered Kitty and Windy Ike living the life of shame,
The Ballad of Pious Pete?I tried to refine that neighbor of mine, honest to God, I did.
The Ballad of Blasphemous Bill?I took a contract to bury the body of blasphemous Bill MacKie,
The Ballad of One-Eyed Mike?This is the tale that was told to me by the man with the crystal eye,
The Ballad of the Brand?'Twas up in a land long famed for gold, where women were far and rare,
The Ballad of Hard-Luck Henry?Now wouldn't you expect to find a man an awful crank
The Man from Eldorado?He's the man from Eldorado, and he's just arrived in town,
My Friends?The man above was a murderer, the man below was a thief;
The Prospector?I strolled up old Bonanza, where I staked in ninety-eight,
The Black Sheep?Hark to the ewe that bore him:
The Telegraph Operator?I will not wash my face;
The Wood-Cutter?The sky is like an envelope,
The Song of the Mouth-Organ?I'm a homely little bit of tin and bone;
The Trail of Ninety-Eight?Gold! We leapt from our benches. Gold! We sprang from our stools.
The Ballad of Gum-Boot Ben?He was an old prospector with a vision bleared and dim.
Clancy of the Mounted Police?In the little Crimson Manual it's written plain and clear
Lost?"Black is the sky, but the land is white--
L'Envoi?We talked of yesteryears, of trails and treasure,

To the Man of the High North
My rhymes are rough, and often in my rhyming?I've drifted, silver-sailed, on seas of dream,?Hearing afar the bells of Elfland chiming,?Seeing the groves of Arcadie agleam.
I was the thrall of Beauty that rejoices?From peak snow-diademed to regal star;?Yet to mine aerie ever pierced the voices,?The pregnant voices of the Things That Are.
The Here, the Now, the vast Forlorn around us;?The gold-delirium, the ferine strife;?The lusts that lure us on, the hates that hound us;?Our red rags in the patch-work quilt of Life.
The nameless men who nameless rivers travel,?And in strange valleys greet strange deaths alone;?The grim, intrepid ones who would unravel?The mysteries that shroud the Polar Zone.
These will I sing, and if one of you linger?Over my pages in the Long, Long Night,?And on some lone line lay a calloused finger,?Saying: "It's human-true--it hits me right";?Then will I count this loving toil well spent;?Then will I dream awhile--content, content.
Men of the High North
Men of the High North, the wild sky is blazing;?Islands of opal float on silver seas;?Swift splendors kindle, barbaric, amazing;?Pale ports of amber, golden argosies.?Ringed all around us the proud peaks are glowing;?Fierce chiefs in council, their wigwam the sky;?Far, far below us the big Yukon flowing,?Like threaded quicksilver, gleams to the eye.
Men of the High North, you who have known it;?You in whose hearts its splendors have abode;?Can you renounce it, can you disown it??Can you forget it, its glory and its goad??Where is the hardship, where is the pain of it??Lost in the limbo of things you've forgot;?Only remain the guerdon and gain of it;?Zest of the foray, and God, how you fought!
You who have made good, you foreign faring;?You money magic to far lands has whirled;?Can you forget those days of vast daring,?There with your soul on the Top o' the World??Nights when no peril could keep you awake on?Spruce boughs you spread for your couch in the snow;?Taste all your feasts like the beans and the bacon?Fried at the camp-fire at forty below?
Can you remember your huskies all going,?Barking with joy and their brushes in air;?You in your parka, glad-eyed and glowing,?Monarch, your subjects the wolf and the bear??Monarch, your kingdom unravisht and gleaming;?Mountains your throne, and a river your car;?Crash of a bull moose to rouse you from dreaming;?Forest your couch, and your candle a star.
You who this faint day the High North is luring?Unto her vastness, taintlessly sweet;?You who are steel-braced, straight-lipped, enduring,?Dreadless in danger and dire in defeat:?Honor the High North ever and ever,?Whether she crown you, or whether she slay;?Suffer her fury, cherish and love her--?He who would rule he must learn to obey.
Men of the High North, fierce mountains love you;?Proud rivers leap when you ride on their breast.?See, the austere sky, pensive above you,?Dons all her jewels to smile on your rest.?Children of Freedom, scornful of frontiers,?We who are weaklings honor your worth.?Lords of the wilderness, Princes of Pioneers,?Let's have a rouse that will ring round the earth.
The Ballad of the Northern Lights
One of the Down and