Rhymes of a Rolling Stone | Page 4

on me and nursed a knife.?And there was I, sore wounded and alone,?I, the last living of my slaughtered band.?Oh sinister the sky, and cold as stone!?In one red laugh of horror reeled the land.?And dazed and desperate I faced their spears,?And like a flame out-leaped that naked knife,?And like a serpent stung their bitter jeers:?"Deny your God, and we will give you life."
Deny my God! Oh life was very sweet!?And it is hard in youth and hope to die;?And there my comrades dear lay at my feet,?And in that blear of blood soon must I lie.?And yet . . . I almost laughed -- it seemed so odd,?For long and long had I not vainly tried?To reason out and body forth my God,?And prayed for light, and doubted -- and DENIED:?Denied the Being I could not conceive,?Denied a life-to-be beyond the grave. . . .?And now they ask me, who do not believe,?Just to deny, to voice my doubt, to save?This life of mine that sings so in the sun,?The bloom of youth yet red upon my cheek,?My only life! -- O fools! 'tis easy done,?I will deny . . . and yet I do not speak.
"Deny your God!" their spears are all agleam,?And I can see their eyes with blood-lust shine;?Their snarling voices shrill into a scream,?And, mad to slay, they quiver for the sign.?Deny my God! yes, I could do it well;?Yet if I did, what of my race, my name??How they would spit on me, these dogs of hell!?Spurn me, and put on me the brand of shame.?A white man's honour! what of that, I say??Shall these black curs cry "Coward" in my face??They who would perish for their gods of clay --?Shall I defile my country and my race??My country! what's my country to me now??Soldier of Fortune, free and far I roam;?All men are brothers in my heart, I vow;?The wide and wondrous world is all my home.?My country! reverent of her splendid Dead,?Her heroes proud, her martyrs pierced with pain:?For me her puissant blood was vainly shed;?For me her drums of battle beat in vain,?And free I fare, half-heedless of her fate:?No faith, no flag I owe -- then why not seek?This last loop-hole of life? Why hesitate??I will deny . . . and yet I do not speak.
"Deny your God!" their spears are poised on high,?And tense and terrible they wait the word;?And dark and darker glooms the dreary sky,?And in that hush of horror no thing stirred.?Then, through the ringing terror and sheer hate?Leaped there a vision to me -- Oh, how far!?A face, Her face . . . through all my stormy fate?A joy, a strength, a glory and a star.?Beneath the pines, where lonely camp-fires gleam,?In seas forlorn, amid the deserts drear,?How I had gladdened to that face of dream!?And never, never had it seemed so dear.?O silken hair that veils the sunny brow!?O eyes of grey, so tender and so true!?O lips of smiling sweetness! must I now?For ever and for ever go from you??Ah, yes, I must . . . for if I do this thing,?How can I look into your face again??Knowing you think me more than half a king,?I with my craven heart, my honour slain.
No! no! my mind's made up. I gaze above,?Into that sky insensate as a stone;?Not for my creed, my country, but my Love?Will I stand up and meet my death alone.?Then though it be to utter dark I sink,?The God that dwells in me is not denied;?"Best" triumphs over "Beast", -- and so I think?Humanity itself is glorified. . . .
"And now, my butchers, I embrace my fate.?Come! let my heart's blood slake the thirsty sod.?Curst be the life you offer! Glut your hate!?Strike! Strike, you dogs! I'll NOT deny my God."
I saw the spears that seemed a-leap to slay,?All quiver earthward at the headman's nod;?And in a daze of dream I heard him say:?"Go, set him free who serves so well his God!"
The Gramaphone at Fond-Du-Lac
Now Eddie Malone got a swell grammyfone to draw all the trade to his store; An' sez he: "Come along for a season of song,?which the like ye had niver before."?Then Dogrib, an' Slave, an' Yellow-knife brave, an' Cree in his dinky canoe, Confluated near, to see an' to hear Ed's grammyfone make its dayboo.
Then Ed turned the crank, an' there on the bank?they squatted like bumps on a log.?For acres around there wasn't a sound, not even the howl of a dog. When out of the horn there sudden was born such a marvellous elegant tone; An' then like a spell on that auddyence fell?the voice of its first grammyfone.
"BAD MEDICINE!" cried Old Tom, the One-eyed,?an' made for to jump in the lake;?But no one gave heed to his little stampede,?so he guessed