The Spell of the Yukon and Other Verses Part 5

Music in the Bush

O'er the dark pines she sees the silver moon, And in the west, all tremulous, a star; And soothing sweet she hears the mellow tune Of cow-bells jangled in the fields afar.

Quite listless, for her daily stent is done, She stands, sad exile, at her rose-wreathed door, And sends her love eternal with the sun That goes to gild the land she'll see no more.

The grave, gaunt pines imprison her sad gaze, All still the sky and darkling drearily; She feels the chilly breath of dear, dead days Come sifting through the alders eerily.

Oh, how the roses riot in their bloom!

The curtains stir as with an ancient pain; Her old piano gleams from out the gloom And waits and waits her tender touch in vain.

But now her hands like moonlight brush the keys With velvet grace -- melodious delight; And now a sad refrain from over seas Goes sobbing on the bosom of the night;

And now she sings. (O! singer in the gloom, Voicing a sorrow we can ne'er express, Here in the Farness where we few have room Unshamed to show our love and tenderness,

Our hearts will echo, till they beat no more, That song of sadness and of motherland; And, stretched in deathless love to England's sh.o.r.e, Some day she'll hearken and she'll understand.)

A prima-donna in the s.h.i.+ning past, But now a mother growing old and gray, She thinks of how she held a people fast In thrall, and gleaned the triumphs of a day.

She sees a sea of faces like a dream; She sees herself a queen of song once more; She sees lips part in rapture, eyes agleam; She sings as never once she sang before.

She sings a wild, sweet song that throbs with pain, The added pain of life that transcends art -- A song of home, a deep, celestial strain, The glorious swan-song of a dying heart.

A lame tramp comes along the railway track, A grizzled dog whose day is nearly done; He pa.s.ses, pauses, then comes slowly back And listens there -- an audience of one.

She sings -- her golden voice is pa.s.sion-fraught, As when she charmed a thousand eager ears; He listens trembling, and she knows it not, And down his hollow cheeks roll bitter tears.

She ceases and is still, as if to pray; There is no sound, the stars are all alight -- Only a wretch who stumbles on his way, Only a vagrant sobbing in the night.

The Rhyme of the Remittance Man

There's a four-p.r.o.nged buck a-swinging in the shadow of my cabin, And it roamed the velvet valley till to-day; But I tracked it by the river, and I trailed it in the cover, And I killed it on the mountain miles away.

Now I've had my lazy supper, and the level sun is gleaming On the water where the silver salmon play; And I light my little corn-cob, and I linger, softly dreaming, In the twilight, of a land that's far away.

Far away, so faint and far, is flaming London, fevered Paris, That I fancy I have gained another star; Far away the din and hurry, far away the sin and worry, Far away -- G.o.d knows they cannot be too far.

Gilded galley-slaves of Mammon -- how my purse-proud brothers taunt me!

I might have been as well-to-do as they Had I clutched like them my chances, learned their wisdom, crushed my fancies, Starved my soul and gone to business every day.

Well, the cherry bends with blossom and the vivid gra.s.s is springing, And the star-like lily nestles in the green; And the frogs their joys are singing, and my heart in tune is ringing, And it doesn't matter what I might have been.

While above the scented pine-gloom, piling heights of golden glory, The sun-G.o.d paints his canvas in the west, I can couch me deep in clover, I can listen to the story Of the lazy, lapping water -- it is best.

While the trout leaps in the river, and the blue grouse thrills the cover, And the frozen snow betrays the panther's track, And the robin greets the dayspring with the rapture of a lover, I am happy, and I'll nevermore go back.

For I know I'd just be longing for the little old log cabin, With the morning-glory clinging to the door, Till I loathed the city places, cursed the care on all the faces, Turned my back on lazar London evermore.

So send me far from Lombard Street, and write me down a failure; Put a little in my purse and leave me free.

Say: "He turned from Fortune's offering to follow up a pale lure, He is one of us no longer -- let him be."

I am one of you no longer; by the trails my feet have broken, The dizzy peaks I've scaled, the camp-fire's glow; By the lonely seas I've sailed in -- yea, the final word is spoken, I am signed and sealed to nature. Be it so.

The Low-Down White

This is the pay-day up at the mines, when the bearded brutes come down; There's money to burn in the streets to-night, so I've sent my klooch to town, With a haggard face and a ribband of red entwined in her hair of brown.

And I know at the dawn she'll come reeling home with the bottles, one, two, three -- One for herself, to drown her shame, and two big bottles for me, To make me forget the thing I am and the man I used to be.

To make me forget the brand of the dog, as I crouch in this hideous place; To make me forget once I kindled the light of love in a lady's face, Where even the squalid Siwash now holds me a black disgrace.

Oh, I have guarded my secret well! And who would dream as I speak In a tribal tongue like a rogue unhung, 'mid the ranch-house filth and reek, I could roll to bed with a Latin phrase and rise with a verse of Greek?

Yet I was a senior prizeman once, and the pride of a college eight; Called to the bar -- my friends were true!

but they could not keep me straight; Then came the divorce, and I went abroad and "died" on the River Plate.

But I'm not dead yet; though with half a lung there isn't time to spare, And I hope that the year will see me out, and, thank G.o.d, no one will care -- Save maybe the little slim Siwash girl with the rose of shame in her hair.

She will come with the dawn, and the dawn is near; I can see its evil glow, Like a corpse-light seen through a frosty pane in a night of want and woe; And yonder she comes by the bleak bull-pines, swift staggering through the snow.

The Little Old Log Cabin

When a man gits on his uppers in a hard-pan sort of town, An' he ain't got nothin' comin' an' he can't afford ter eat, An' he's in a fix for lodgin' an' he wanders up an' down, An' you'd fancy he'd been boozin', he's so locoed 'bout the feet; When he's feelin' sneakin' sorry an' his belt is hangin' slack, An' his face is peaked an' gray-like an' his heart gits down an' whines, Then he's apt ter git a-thinkin' an' a-wis.h.i.+n' he was back In the little ol' log cabin in the shadder of the pines.

When he's on the blazin' desert an' his canteen's sprung a leak, An' he's all alone an' crazy an' he's crawlin' like a snail, An' his tongue's so black an' swollen that it hurts him fer to speak, An' he gouges down fer water an' the raven's on his trail; When he's done with care and cursin' an' he feels more like to cry, An' he sees ol' Death a-grinnin' an' he thinks upon his crimes, Then he's like ter hev' a vision, as he settles down ter die, Of the little ol' log cabin an' the roses an' the vines.

Oh, the little ol' log cabin, it's a solemn s.h.i.+nin' mark, When a feller gits ter sinnin' an' a-goin' ter the wall, An' folks don't understand him an' he's gropin' in the dark, An' he's sick of bein' cursed at an' he's longin' fer his call!

When the sun of life's a-sinkin' you can see it 'way above, On the hill from out the shadder in a glory 'gin the sky, An' your mother's voice is callin', an' her arms are stretched in love, An' somehow you're glad you're goin', an' you ain't a-scared to die; When you'll be like a kid again an' nestle to her breast, An' never leave its shelter, an' forget, an' love, an' rest.

The Younger Son