THE END OF THE TRAIL
I was summoned in the gloaming to the bedside of a friend
Who was passing through the shadows ever lurking at the end:
To the bedside of a comrade I had known long, long ago
Back in dear old Compton County, where the sugar maples grow.
Just a simple son of Lewis, careless, fearless, poor and proud,
As becomes a Highland Scotsman of the royal clan MacLeod.
He could sing the songs of loveland, as I've seldom heard them sung—
Richest treasures of the Highlands flowed in music from his tongue.
What a privilege and pleasure to have heard him in his prime,
Ere his mellow notes were burdened by the cruel strains of time.
When the gentle nurse had brought me to the couch of poor old John
E'en a novice would not question that his race was nearly run.
He was lonely in the city, longing for the spruce and pine,
And his eyes grew bright with pleasure as he placed his hand in mine,
Saying: "Don't forget me, Angus, but come out to see me here,
For the nights are long and lonely, and the days devoid of cheer.
Yes, I know my days are numbered, all the signs to me are plain:
I shall never guide the movements of the skid road boys again.
There's a secret I would tell you that I've never told before,
It was locked up in my bosom fifty years ago or more:
It's of Mary, gentle Mary, whom I loved in years agone—
Loved her then and will forever, and my Mary loved her John!
But there came another wooer, who was rich as I was poor,
And her parents looked with favor on this keeper of a store.
I was wounded, yes, and angry, that their greed should thus deny
Me the place they held for riches, so I bade them all good bye,
And I left my Mary weeping, though she begged of me to stay—
Left her weeping—to my sorrow—and I westward took my way.
Then I drifted hither, thither, like the flotsam of the sea:
Every year a little farther from my home in Tallabharee,
Till at last I came to anchor on the shores of Puget Sound,
Where so many of my comrades in misfortune may be found."
Here his speech grew slow and halting, as he said, amid his groans,
He had feared for what might happen to his "poor old aching bones."
"Do not let them sink my body where the derelicts are thrown,
For although I'm poor in pocket, pride was bred within my bone.
When my limbs refuse their burden and I cannot further go,
And the trail is dark and tangled where the fir and cedars grow;
When the cord of life is severed and in death I'm lying low,
And there's nothing left but tallabh of the John you used to know:
Lay me down amid the shadows of the forest that I love,
With the grey green moss around me and the skies of God above;
Where no noises will disturb me save the whisper of the woods
And the night-birds' dismal hooting in the primal solitudes,
Where the crooning voice of nature chants the glory of the West,
Let the groves of God hold vigil o'er my everlasting rest.
Over there beyond the shadows I will find my Mary dear,
And we'll cruise the trails together that we missed so sadly here."
When again I looked upon him death had wrapped him in its chill,
Songs were silenced now forever and the lilting lips were still.