Ballads of a Cheechako

To the Man of the High North My rhymes are rough, and often in my rhyming Men of the High North Men of the High North, the wild sky is blazing; The Ballad of the Northern Lights One of the Down and Out—that's me. Stare at me well, ay, stare! The Ballad of the Black Fox Skin There was Claw-fingered Kitty and Windy Ike living the life of shame, The Ballad of Pious Pete I tried to refine that neighbor of mine, honest to God, I did. The Ballad of Blasphemous Bill I took a contract to bury the body of blasphemous Bill MacKie, The Ballad of One-Eyed Mike This is the tale that was told to me by the man with the crystal eye, The Ballad of the Brand 'Twas up in a land long famed for gold, where women were far and rare, The Ballad of Hard-Luck Henry Now wouldn't you expect to find a man an awful crank The Man from Eldorado He's the man from Eldorado, and he's just arrived in town, My Friends The man above was a murderer, the man below was a thief; The Prospector I strolled up old Bonanza, where I staked in ninety-eight, The Black Sheep Hark to the ewe that bore him: The Telegraph Operator I will not wash my face; The Wood-Cutter The sky is like an envelope, The Song of the Mouth-Organ I'm a homely little bit of tin and bone; The Trail of Ninety-Eight Gold! We leapt from our benches. Gold! We sprang from our stools. The Ballad of Gum-Boot Ben He was an old prospector with a vision bleared and dim. Clancy of the Mounted Police In the little Crimson Manual it's written plain and clear Lost Black is the sky, but the land is white— L'Envoi We talked of yesteryears, of trails and treasure,
My rhymes are rough, and often in my rhyming I've drifted, silver-sailed, on seas of dream, Hearing afar the bells of Elfland chiming, Seeing the groves of Arcadie agleam. I was the thrall of Beauty that rejoices From peak snow-diademed to regal star; Yet to mine aerie ever pierced the voices, The pregnant voices of the Things That Are. The Here, the Now, the vast Forlorn around us; The gold-delirium, the ferine strife; The lusts that lure us on, the hates that hound us; Our red rags in the patch-work quilt of Life. The nameless men who nameless rivers travel, And in strange valleys greet strange deaths alone; The grim, intrepid ones who would unravel The mysteries that shroud the Polar Zone. These will I sing, and if one of you linger Over my pages in the Long, Long Night, And on some lone line lay a calloused finger, Saying: It's human-true—it hits me right ; Then will I count this loving toil well spent; Then will I dream awhile—content, content.