Rhymes of a Rolling Stone | Page 9

and angel-sweet;
She touched his hair of grey;
. . . . .
BUT HE, SOB-SHAKEN, AT HER FEET,
COULD
ONLY PRAY AND PRAY.
The Junior God
The Junior God looked from his place
In the conning towers of
heaven,
And he saw the world through the span of space
Like a
giant golf-ball driven.
And because he was bored, as some gods are,

With high celestial mirth,
He clutched the reins of a shooting star,

And he steered it down to earth.
The Junior God, 'mid leaf and bud,
Passed on with a weary air,
Till
lo! he came to a pool of mud,
And some hogs were rolling there.

Then in he plunged with gleeful cries,
And down he lay supine;
For
they had no mud in paradise,
And they likewise had no swine.
The Junior God forgot himself;
He squelched mud through his toes;

With the careless joy of a wanton boy
His reckless laughter rose.

Till, tired at last, in a brook close by,
He washed off every stain;

Then softly up to the radiant sky
He rose, a god again.

The Junior God now heads the roll
In the list of heaven's peers;
He
sits in the House of High Control,
And he regulates the spheres.
Yet
does he wonder, do you suppose,
If, even in gods divine,
The best
and wisest may not be those
Who have wallowed awhile with the
swine?
The Nostomaniac
On the ragged edge of the world I'll roam,
And the home of the wolf
shall be my home,
And a bunch of bones on the boundless snows

The end of my trail . . . who knows, who knows!
I'm dreaming to-night in the fire-glow, alone in my study tower, My
books battalioned around me, my Kipling flat on my knee; But I'm not
in the mood for reading, I haven't moved for an hour; Body and brain
I'm weary, weary the heart of me;
Weary of crushing a longing it's
little I understand,
For I thought that my trail was ended, I thought I
had earned my rest; But oh, it's stronger than life is, the call of the
hearthless land! And I turn to the North in my trouble, as a child to the
mother-breast.
Here in my den it's quiet; the sea-wind taps on the pane;
There's
comfort and ease and plenty, the smile of the South is sweet. All that a
man might long for, fight for and seek in vain,
Pictures and books and
music, pleasure my last retreat.
Peace! I thought I had gained it, I
swore that my tale was told; By my hair that is grey I swore it, by my
eyes that are slow to see; Yet what does it all avail me? to-night,
to-night as of old, Out of the dark I hear it -- the Northland calling to
me.
And I'm daring a rampageous river that runs the devil knows where;
My hand is athrill on the paddle, the birch-bark bounds like a bird.
Hark to the rumble of rapids! Here in my morris chair
Eager and
tense I'm straining -- isn't it most absurd?
Now in the churn and the
lather, foam that hisses and stings, Leap I, keyed for the struggle, fury
and fume and roar;
Rocks are spitting like hell-cats -- Oh, it's a sport

for kings, Life on a twist of the paddle . . . there's my "Kim" on the
floor.
How I thrill and I vision! Then my camp of a night;
Red and gold of
the fire-glow, net afloat in the stream;
Scent of the pines and silence,
little "pal" pipe alight,
Body a-purr with pleasure, sleep untroubled of
dream:
Banquet of paystreak bacon! moment of joy divine,
When
the bannock is hot and gluey, and the teapot's nearing the boil! Never
was wolf so hungry, stomach cleaving to spine. . . .
Ha! there's my
servant calling, says that dinner will spoil.
What do I want with dinner? Can I eat any more?
Can I sleep as I
used to? . . . Oh, I abhor this life!
Give me the Great Uncertain, the
Barren Land for a floor,
The Milky Way for a roof-beam, splendour
and space and strife: Something to fight and die for -- the limpid Lake
of the Bear, The Empire of Empty Bellies, the dunes where the Dogribs
dwell; Big things, real things, live things . . . here on my morris chair
How I ache for the Northland! "Dinner and servants" -- Hell!!
Am I too old, I wonder? Can I take one trip more?
Go to the
granite-ribbed valleys, flooded with sunset wine, Peaks that pierce the
aurora, rivers I must explore,
Lakes of a thousand islands, millioning
hordes of the Pine? Do they not miss me, I wonder, valley and peak and
plain?
Whispering each to the other: "Many a moon has passed . . .
Where has he gone, our lover? Will he come back again?
Star with
his fires our tundra, leave us his bones at last?"
Yes, I'll go back to the Northland, back to the