The Spell of the Yukon | Page 3

the American editions?of 1907 and 1916. Some minor errors have been corrected.]
[Note on text: Italicized stanzas will be indented 5 spaces. Italicized AND indented stanzas will be indented 10 spaces. Italicized words or phrases will be capitalized. Lines longer than 77 characters have been broken according to metre,?and the continuation is indented two spaces.]
To C. M.
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
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,
The Spell of the Yukon
I wanted the gold, and I sought it,?I scrabbled and mucked like a slave.?Was it famine or scurvy -- I fought it;?I hurled my youth into a grave.?I wanted the gold, and I got it --?Came out with a fortune last fall, --?Yet somehow life's not what I thought it,?And somehow the gold isn't all.
No! There's the land. (Have you seen it?)?It's the cussedest land that I know,?From the big, dizzy mountains that screen it?To the deep, deathlike valleys below.?Some say God was tired when He made it;?Some say it's a fine land to shun;?Maybe; but there's some as would trade it?For no land on earth -- and I'm one.
You come to get rich (damned good reason);?You feel like an exile at first;?You hate it like hell for a season,?And then you are worse than the worst.?It grips you like some kinds of sinning;?It twists you from foe to a friend;?It seems it's been since the beginning;?It seems it will be to the end.
I've stood in some mighty-mouthed hollow?That's plumb-full of hush to the brim;?I've watched the big, husky sun wallow?In crimson and gold, and grow dim,?Till the moon set the pearly peaks gleaming,?And the stars tumbled out, neck and crop;?And I've thought that I surely was dreaming,?With the peace o' the world piled on top.
The summer -- no sweeter was ever;?The sunshiny woods all athrill;?The grayling aleap in the river,?The bighorn asleep on the hill.?The strong life that never knows harness;?The wilds where the caribou call;?The freshness, the freedom, the farness --?O God! how