O outcast land! O leper land!
Let the lone wolf-cry all express—
The hate insensate of thy hand,
Thy heart's abysmal loneliness.

PAGE
THE LAW OF THE YUKON	[11]
THE PARSON'S SON	[17]
THE SPELL OF THE YUKON	[21]
THE CALL OF THE WILD	[25]
THE LONE TRAIL	[28]
THE HEART OF THE SOURDOUGH	[31]
THE THREE VOICES	[34]
THE PINES	[36]
THE HARPY	[39]
THE LURE OF LITTLE VOICES	[43]
THE SONG OF THE WAGE-SLAVE	[46]
GRIN	[49]
THE SHOOTING OF DAN McGREW	[51]
THE CREMATION OF SAM McGEE	[56]
MY MADONNA	[62]
UNFORGOTTEN	[63]
THE RECKONING	[64]
QUATRAINS	[66]
THE MEN THAT DON'T FIT IN	[68]
MUSIC IN THE BUSH	[70]
THE RHYME OF THE REMITTANCE MAN	[73]
THE LOW-DOWN WHITE	[76]
THE LITTLE OLD LOG CABIN	[78]
THE YOUNGER SON	[81]
THE MARCH OF THE DEAD	[85]
"FIGHTING MAC"	[89]
THE WOMAN AND THE ANGEL	[93]
THE RHYME OF THE RESTLESS ONES	[96]
NEW YEAR'S EVE	[99]
COMFORT	[103]
PREMONITION	[105]
THE TRAMPS	[106]
L'ENVOI	[108]

Songs of a Sourdough

THE LAW OF THE YUKON

This is the law of the Yukon, and ever she makes it plain:
"Send not your foolish and feeble; send me your strong and your sane.
Strong for the red rage of battle; sane, for I harry them sore;
Send me men girt for the combat, men who are grit to the core;
Swift as the panther in triumph, fierce as the bear in defeat,
Sired of a bulldog parent, steeled in the furnace heat.
Send me the best of your breeding, lend me your chosen ones;
Them will I take to my bosom, them will I call my sons;
Them will I gild with my treasure, them will I glut with my meat;
But the others—the misfits, the failures—I trample under my feet.
Dissolute, damned, and despairful, crippled and palsied and slain,
Ye would send me the spawn of your gutters—Go! take back your spawn again.

CONTENTS

Songs of a Sourdough

THE LAW OF THE YUKON