Robert W. Service

There were two brothers, John and James, And when the town went up in flames, To save the house of James dashed John, Then turned, and lo! his own was gone. And when the great World War began, To volunteer John promptly ran; And while he learned live bombs to lob, James stayed at home and — sneaked his job. John came home with a missing limb; That didn’t seem to worry him; But oh, it set his brain awhirl To find that James had — sneaked his girl! Time passed. John tried his grief to drown; To-day James owns one-half the town; His army contracts riches yield; And John? Well,search the Potter’s Field.

I will not wash my face; I will not brush my hair; I "pig" around the place — There's nobody to care. Nothing but rock and tree; Nothing but wood and stone; Oh God, it's hell to be Alone, alone, alone. Snow-peaks and deep-gashed draws Corral me in a ring. I feel as if I was The only living thing On all this blighted earth; And so I frowst and shrink, And crouching by my hearth, I hear the thoughts I think. I think of all I miss — The boys I used to know; The girls I used to kiss; The coin I used to blow: The bars I used to haunt; The racket and the row; The beers I didn't want (I wish I had 'em now). Day after day the same, Only a little worse; No one to grouch or blame — Oh, for a loving curse! Oh, in the night I fear, Haunted by nameless things, Just for a voice to cheer, Just for a hand that clings! Faintly as from a star Voices come o'er the line; Voices of ghosts afar, Not in this world of mine. Lives in whose loom I grope; Words in whose weft I hear Eager the thrill of hope, Awful the chill of fear. I'm thinking out aloud; I reckon that is bad; (The snow is like a shroud) — Maybe I'm going mad. Say! wouldn't that be tough? This awful hush that hugs And chokes one is enough To make a man go "bugs". There's not a thing to do; I cannot sleep at night; No wonder I'm so blue; Oh, for a friendly fight! The din and rush of strife; A music-hall aglow; A crowd, a city, life — Dear God, I miss it so! Here, you have moped enough! Brace up and play the game! But say, it's awful tough — Day after day the same (I've said that twice, I bet). Well, there's not much to say. I wish I had a pet, Or something I could play. Cheer up! don't get so glum And sick of everything; The worst is yet to come; God help you till the Spring. God shield you from the Fear; Teach you to laugh, not moan. Ha! ha! it sounds so queer — Alone, alone, alone.

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 I’m stuck on it all. The winter! the brightness that blinds you, The white land locked tight as a drum, The cold fear that follows and finds you, The silence that bludgeons you dumb. The snows that are older than history, The woods where the weird shadows slant; The stillness, the moonlight, the mystery, I’ve bade ’em good-by — but I can’t. There’s a land where the mountains are nameless, And the rivers all run God knows where; There are lives that are erring and aimless, And deaths that just hang by a hair; There are hardships that nobody reckons; There are valleys unpeopled and still; There’s a land — oh, it beckons and beckons, And I want to go back — and I will. They’re making my money diminish; I’m sick of the taste of champagne. Thank God! when I’m skinned to a finish I’ll pike to the Yukon again. I’ll fight — and you bet it’s no sham-fight; It’s hell! — but I’ve been there before; And it’s better than this by a damsite — So me for the Yukon once more. There’s gold, and it’s haunting and haunting; It’s luring me on as of old; Yet it isn’t the gold that I’m wanting So much as just finding the gold. It’s the great, big, broad land ’way up yonder, It’s the forests where silence has lease; It’s the beauty that thrills me with wonder, It’s the stillness that fills me with peace.

When the long, long day is over, and the Big Boss gives me my pay, I hope that it won't be hell-fire, as some of the parsons say. And I hope that it won't be heaven, with some of the parsons I've met — All I want is just quiet, just to rest and forget. Look at my face, toil-furrowed; look at my calloused hands; Master, I've done Thy bidding, wrought in Thy many lands — Wrought for the little masters, big-bellied they be, and rich; I've done their desire for a daily hire, and I die like a dog in a ditch. I have used the strength Thou hast given, Thou knowest I did not shirk; Threescore years of labor — Thine be the long day's work. And now, Big Master, I'm broken and bent and twisted and scarred, But I've held my job, and Thou knowest, and Thou wilt not judge me hard. Thou knowest my sins are many, and often I've played the fool — Whiskey and cards and women, they made me the devil's tool. I was just like a child with money; I flung it away with a curse, Feasting a fawning parasite, or glutting a harlot's purse; Then back to the woods repentant, back to the mill or the mine, I, the worker of workers, everything in my line. Everything hard but headwork (I'd no more brains than a kid), A brute with brute strength to labor, doing as I was bid; Living in camps with men-folk, a lonely and loveless life; Never knew kiss of sweetheart, never caress of wife. A brute with brute strength to labor, and they were so far above — Yet I'd gladly have gone to the gallows for one little look of Love. I, with the strength of two men, savage and shy and wild — Yet how I'd ha' treasured a woman, and the sweet, warm kiss of a child! Well, 'tis Thy world, and Thou knowest. I blaspheme and my ways be rude; But I've lived my life as I found it, and I've done my best to be good; I, the primitive toiler, half naked and grimed to the eyes, Sweating it deep in their ditches, swining it stark in their styes; Hurling down forests before me, spanning tumultuous streams; Down in the ditch building o'er me palaces fairer than dreams; Boring the rock to the ore-bed, driving the road through the fen, Resolute, dumb, uncomplaining, a man in a world of men. Master, I've filled my contract, wrought in Thy many lands; Not by my sins wilt Thou judge me, but by the work of my hands. Master, I've done Thy bidding, and the light is low in the west, And the long, long shift is over ... Master, I've earned it — Rest.

A bunch of the boys were whooping it up in the Malamute saloon; The kid that handles the music-box was hitting a jag-time tune; Back of the bar, in a solo game, sat Dangerous Dan McGrew, And watching his luck was his light-o'-love, the lady that's known as Lou. When out of the night, which was fifty below, and into the din and the glare, There stumbled a miner fresh from the creeks, dog-dirty, and loaded for bear. He looked like a man with a foot in the grave and scarcely the strength of a louse, Yet he tilted a poke of dust on the bar, and he called for drinks for the house. There was none could place the stranger's face, though we searched ourselves for a clue; But we drank his health, and the last to drink was Dangerous Dan McGrew. There's men that somehow just grip your eyes, and hold them hard like a spell; And such was he, and he looked to me like a man who had lived in hell; With a face most hair, and the dreary stare of a dog whose day is done, As he watered the green stuff in his glass, and the drops fell one by one. Then I got to figgering who he was, and wondering what he'd do, And I turned my head — and there watching him was the lady that's known as Lou. His eyes went rubbering round the room, and he seemed in a kind of daze, Till at last that old piano fell in the way of his wandering gaze. The rag-time kid was having a drink; there was no one else on the stool, So the stranger stumbles across the room, and flops down there like a fool. In a buckskin shirt that was glazed with dirt he sat, and I saw him sway; Then he clutched the keys with his talon hands — my God! but that man could play. Were you ever out in the Great Alone, when the moon was awful clear, And the icy mountains hemmed you in with a silence you most could hear; With only the howl of a timber wolf, and you camped there in the cold, A half-dead thing in a stark, dead world, clean mad for the muck called gold; While high overhead, green, yellow and red, the North Lights swept in bars? — Then you've a hunch what the music meant. . . hunger and night and the stars. And hunger not of the belly kind, that's banished with bacon and beans, But the gnawing hunger of lonely men for a home and all that it means; For a fireside far from the cares that are, four walls and a roof above; But oh! so cramful of cosy joy, and crowned with a woman's love — A woman dearer than all the world, and true as Heaven is true — (God! how ghastly she looks through her rouge, — the lady that's known as Lou.) Then on a sudden the music changed, so soft that you scarce could hear; But you felt that your life had been looted clean of all that it once held dear; That someone had stolen the woman you loved; that her love was a devil's lie; That your guts were gone, and the best for you was to crawl away and die. 'Twas the crowning cry of a heart's despair, and it thrilled you through and through — "I guess I'll make it a spread misere", said Dangerous Dan McGrew. The music almost died away ... then it burst like a pent-up flood; And it seemed to say, "Repay, repay," and my eyes were blind with blood. The thought came back of an ancient wrong, and it stung like a frozen lash, And the lust awoke to kill, to kill ... then the music stopped with a crash, And the stranger turned, and his eyes they burned in a most peculiar way; In a buckskin shirt that was glazed with dirt he sat, and I saw him sway; Then his lips went in in a kind of grin, and he spoke, and his voice was calm, And "Boys," says he, "you don't know me, and none of you care a damn; But I want to state, and my words are straight, and I'll bet my poke they're true, That one of you is a hound of hell. . .and that one is Dan McGrew." Then I ducked my head, and the lights went out, and two guns blazed in the dark, And a woman screamed, and the lights went up, and two men lay stiff and stark. Pitched on his head, and pumped full of lead, was Dangerous Dan McGrew, While the man from the creeks lay clutched to the breast of the lady that's known as Lou. These are the simple facts of the case, and I guess I ought to know. They say that the stranger was crazed with "hooch," and I'm not denying it's so. I'm not so wise as the lawyer guys, but strictly between us two — The woman that kissed him and — pinched his poke — was the lady that's known as Lou.

It’s fine to have a blow-out in a fancy restaurant, With terrapin and canvas-back and all the wine you want; To enjoy the flowers and music, watch the pretty women pass, Smoke a choice cigar, and sip the wealthy water in your glass. It’s bully in a high-toned joint to eat and drink your fill, But it’s quite another matter when you Pay the bill. It’s great to go out every night on fun or pleasure bent; To wear your glad rags always and to never save a cent; To drift along regardless, have a good time every trip; To hit the high spots sometimes, and to let your chances slip; To know you’re acting foolish, yet to go on fooling still, Till Nature calls a show-down, and you Pay the bill. Time has got a little bill — get wise while yet you may, For the debit side’s increasing in a most alarming way; The things you had no right to do, the things you should have done, They’re all put down; it’s up to you to pay for every one. So eat, drink and be merry, have a good time if you will, But God help you when the time comes, and you Foot the bill.

The porter in the Pullman car Was charming, as they sometimes are. He scanned my baggage tags: “Are you The man who wrote of Lady Lou?” When I said “yes” he made a fuss — Oh, he was most assiduous; And I was pleased to think that he Enjoyed my brand of poetry. He was forever at my call, So when we got to Montreal And he had brushed me off, I said: “I’m glad my poems you have read, I feel quite flattered, I confess, And if you give me your address I’ll send you (autographed, of course) One of my little books of verse.” He smiled — his teeth were white as milk; He spoke — his voice was soft as silk. I recognized, despite his skin, The perfect gentleman within. Then courteously he made reply: “I thank you kindly, Sir, but I With many other cherished tome Have all your books of verse at home. “When I was quite a little boy I used to savour them with joy; And now my daughter, aged three, Can tell the tale of Sam McGee; While Tom, my son, that’s only two, Has heard the yarn of Dan McGrew .... Don’t think your stuff I’m not applaudin’ — My taste is Eliot and Auden.” So as we gravely bade adieu I felt quite snubbed — and so would you. And yet I shook him by the hand, Impressed that he could understand The works of those two tops I mention, So far beyond my comprehension — A humble bard of boys and barmen, Disdained, alas! by Pullman carmen.

I strolled up old Bonanza, where I staked in ninety-eight, A-purpose to revisit the old claim. I kept thinking mighty sadly of the funny ways of Fate, And the lads who once were with me in the game. Poor boys, they’re down-and-outers, and there’s scarcely one to-day Can show a dozen colors in his poke; And me, I’m still prospecting, old and battered, gaunt and gray, And I’m looking for a grub-stake, and I’m broke. I strolled up old Bonanza. The same old moon looked down; The same old landmarks seemed to yearn to me; But the cabins all were silent, and the flat, once like a town, Was mighty still and lonesome-like to see. There were piles and piles of tailings where we toiled with pick and pan, And turning round a bend I heard a roar, And there a giant gold-ship of the very newest plan Was tearing chunks of pay-dirt from the shore. It wallowed in its water-bed; it burrowed, heaved and swung; It gnawed its way ahead with grunts and sighs; Its bill of fare was rock and sand; the tailings were its dung; It glared around with fierce electric eyes. Full fifty buckets crammed its maw; it bellowed out for more; It looked like some great monster in the gloom. With two to feed its sateless greed, it worked for seven score, And I sighed: “Ah, old-time miner, here’s your doom!” The idle windlass turns to rust; the sagging sluice-box falls; The holes you digged are water to the brim; Your little sod-roofed cabins with the snugly moss-chinked walls Are deathly now and mouldering and dim. The battle-field is silent where of old you fought it out; The claims you fiercely won are lost and sold. But there’s a little army that they’ll never put to rout — The men who simply live to seek the gold. The men who can’t remember when they learned to swing a pack, Or in what lawless land the quest began; The solitary seeker with his grub-stake on his back, The restless buccaneer of pick and pan. On the mesas of the Southland, on the tundras of the North, You will find us, changed in face but still the same; And it isn’t need, it isn’t greed that sends us faring forth — It’s the fever, it’s the glory of the game. For once you’ve panned the speckled sand and seen the bonny dust, Its peerless brightness blinds you like a spell; It’s little else you care about; you go because you must, And you feel that you could follow it to hell. You’d follow it in hunger, and you’d follow it in cold; You’d follow it in solitude and pain; And when you’re stiff and battened down let someone whisper “Gold,” You’re lief to rise and follow it again. Yet look you, if I find the stuff it’s just like so much dirt; I fling it to the four winds like a child. It’s wine and painted women and the things that do me hurt, Till I crawl back, beggared, broken, to the Wild. Till I crawl back, sapped and sodden, to my grub-stake and my tent — There’s a city, there’s an army (hear them shout). There’s the gold in millions, millions, but I haven’t got a cent; And oh, it’s me, it’s me that found it out. It was my dream that made it good, my dream that made me go To lands of dread and death disprized of man; But oh, I’ve known a glory that their hearts will never know, When I picked the first big nugget from my pan. It’s still my dream, my dauntless dream, that drives me forth once more To seek and starve and suffer in the Vast; That heaps my heart with eager hope, that glimmers on before — My dream that will uplift me to the last. Perhaps I am stark crazy, but there’s none of you too sane; It’s just a little matter of degree. My hobby is to hunt out gold; it’s fortressed in my brain; It’s life and love and wife and home to me. And I’ll strike it, yes, I’ll strike it; I’ve a hunch I cannot fail; I’ve a vision, I’ve a prompting, I’ve a call; I hear the hoarse stampeding of an army on my trail, To the last, the greatest gold camp of them all. Beyond the shark-tooth ranges sawing savage at the sky There’s a lowering land no white man ever struck; There’s gold, there’s gold in millions, and I’ll find it if I die. And I’m going there once more to try my luck. Maybe I’ll fail — what matter? It’s a mandate, it’s a vow; And when in lands of dreariness and dread You seek the last lone frontier, far beyond your frontiers now, You will find the old prospector, silent, dead. You will find a tattered tent-pole with a ragged robe below it; You will find a rusted gold-pan on the sod; You will find the claim I’m seeking, with my bones as stakes to show it; But I’ve sought the last Recorder, and He’s — God.

I haled me a woman from the street, Shameless, but, oh, so fair! I bade her sit in the model’s seat And I painted her sitting there. I hid all trace of her heart unclean; I painted a babe at her breast; I painted her as she might have been If the Worst had been the Best. She laughed at my picture and went away. Then came, with a knowing nod, A connoisseur, and I heard him say; “’Tis Mary, the Mother of God.” So I painted a halo round her hair, And I sold her and took my fee, And she hangs in the church of Saint Hillaire, Where you and all may see.

There's a race of men that don't fit in, A race that can't stay still; So they break the hearts of kith and kin, And they roam the world at will. They range the field and they rove the flood, And they climb the mountain's crest; Theirs is the curse of the gypsy blood, And they don't know how to rest. If they just went straight they might go far; They are strong and brave and true; But they're always tired of the things that are, And they want the strange and new. They say: "Could I find my proper groove, What a deep mark I would make!" So they chop and change, and each fresh move Is only a fresh mistake. And each forgets, as he strips and runs With a brilliant, fitful pace, It's the steady, quiet, plodding ones Who win in the lifelong race. And each forgets that his youth has fled, Forgets that his prime is past, Till he stands one day, with a hope that's dead, In the glare of the truth at last. He has failed, he has failed; he has missed his chance; He has just done things by half. Life's been a jolly good joke on him, And now is the time to laugh. Ha, ha! He is one of the Legion Lost; He was never meant to win; He's a rolling stone, and it's bred in the bone; He's a man who won't fit in.