MY PAL
The Rhyme of the Old Pioneer
You're old and you're dirty, I know.
You've laid in the mud and the snow.
Were you ever so old,
And whatever the cold,
Your dirt had a treasure below.
When grub and the water was low,
You'd ever your faithfulness show.
And you'd never complain,
When again and again
The blizzards would over us blow.
We've travelled together, I've said;
You've followed wherever I've led.
And you never have failed,
On the path we have trailed,
My dirty old comf'table bed.
THE UNASKED QUESTION
We ask them "When?" and "Where?" but
never "Why?"
In the land of new beginnings, there's a question never asked,
There are reasons into which we never pry.
Silent men who seek our friendship with a page forever passed,
They have come, we never seek to ask them "Why?"
They have come, and why, no matter, they have come,
'tis all we ask,
Where the fences fade from view we take their hand.
Vessels marred within the moulding, men we turn
them out at last,
Hard and daring, sealed forever with the brand.
Some have drunk the dregs of pleasure, some have
stroked a winning eight—
Drifting derelicts, they seek the lonely way.
One by one they swell the number, one by one, the toys
of fate
One by one ye knew them once—'twas yesterday.