The Mountain And The Lake

I know a mountain thrilling to the stars,
Peerless and pure, and pinnacled with snow;
Glimpsing the golden dawn o'er coral bars,
Flaunting the vanisht sunset's garnet glow;
Proudly patrician, passionless, serene;
Soaring in silvered steeps where cloud-surfs break;
Virgin and vestal -- Oh, a very Queen!
And at her feet there dreams a quiet lake.


My lake adores my mountain -- well I know,
For I have watched it from its dawn-dream start,
Stilling its mirror to her splendid snow,
Framing her image in its trembling heart;
Glassing her graciousness of greening wood,
Kissing her throne, melodiously mad,
Thrilling responsive to her every mood,
Gloomed with her sadness, gay when she is glad.


My lake has dreamed and loved since time was born;
Will love and dream till time shall cease to be;
Gazing to Her in worship half forlorn,
Who looks towards the stars and will not see --
My peerless mountain, splendid in her scorn. . . .
Alas! poor little lake! Alas! poor me!

The Monster

When we might make with happy heart
This world a paradise,
With bombs we blast brave men apart,
With napalm carbonize.
Where we might till the sunny soil,
And sing for joy of life,
We spend our treasure and our toil
In bloody strife.

The fields of wheat are sheening gold,
The flocks have silver fleece;
The signs are sweetly manifold
Of plenty, praise and peace.
Yet see! The sky is like a cowl
Where grimy toilers bore
The shards of steel that feed the foul
Red maw of War.

Instead of butter give us guns;
Instead of sugur, shells.

Devoted mothers, bear your sons
To glut still hotter hells.

Alas! When will mad mankind wake
To banish evermore,

And damn for God in Heaven's sake
Mass Murder--WAR?

The Missal Makers

To visit the Escurial
We took a motor bus,
And there a guide mercurial

Took charge of us.
He showed us through room after room,
And talked hour after hour,
Of place, crypt and royal tomb,

Of pomp and power.

But in bewilderment of grace
What pleased me most of all
Were ancient missals proud in place

In stately hall.
A thousand tomes there were at least,
All luminously bright,
That each a score of years some priest

Had toiled to write.

Poor patient monk who brushed and penned
From rise to set of sun!
And when his book came to an end,


His life was done.
With heart of love to God above
For guidance he would pray,
And here behold his art of gold

Undimmed today.

And as our homeward way we took,
The thought occurred to me -
If scribes would only write one book,


How good 'twould be!
Or if our authors had to scroll
Their words on vellum fair,
Their output might be very small,

But oh how rare!

So writers of today take note,
If you your souls would save,
Let every line be one to quote

And to engrave.
Then though you dismally are dead,
You will be cheered to know
your precious prose may still be read

-Ten years or so.

The March Of The Dead

The cruel war was over -- oh, the triumph was so sweet!
We watched the troops returning, through our tears;
There was triumph, triumph, triumph down the scarlet glittering street,
And you scarce could hear the music for the cheers.
And you scarce could see the house-tops for the flags that flew between;
The bells were pealing madly to the sky;
And everyone was shouting for the Soldiers of the Queen,
And the glory of an age was passing by.

And then there came a shadow, swift and sudden, dark and drear;
The bells were silent, not an echo stirred.
The flags were drooping sullenly, the men forgot to cheer;
We waited, and we never spoke a word.
The sky grew darker, darker, till from out the gloomy rack
There came a voice that checked the heart with dread:
"Tear down, tear down your bunting now, and hang up sable black;
They are coming -- it's the Army of the Dead."

They were coming, they were coming, gaunt and ghastly, sad and slow;
They were coming, all the crimson wrecks of pride;
With faces seared, and cheeks red smeared, and haunting eyes of woe,
And clotted holes the khaki couldn't hide.
Oh, the clammy brow of anguish! the livid, foam-flecked lips!
The reeling ranks of ruin swept along!
The limb that trailed, the hand that failed, the bloody finger tips!
And oh, the dreary rhythm of their song!

"They left us on the veldt-side, but we felt we couldn't stop
On this, our England's crowning festal day;
We're the men of Magersfontein, we're the men of Spion Kop,
Colenso -- we're the men who had to pay.
We're the men who paid the blood-price. Shall the grave be all our gain?
You owe us. Long and heavy is the score.
Then cheer us for our glory now, and cheer us for our pain,
And cheer us as ye never cheered before."

The folks were white and stricken, and each tongue seemed weighted with lead;
Each heart was clutched in hollow hand of ice;
And every eye was staring at the horror of the dead,
The pity of the men who paid the price.
They were come, were come to mock us, in the first flush of our peace;
Through writhing lips their teeth were all agleam;
They were coming in their thousands -- oh, would they never cease!
I closed my eyes, and then -- it was a dream.

There was triumph, triumph, triumph down the scarlet gleaming street;
The town was mad; a man was like a boy.
A thousand flags were flaming where the sky and city meet;
A thousand bells were thundering the joy.
There was music, mirth and sunshine; but some eyes shone with regret;
And while we stun with cheers our homing braves,
O God, in Thy great mercy, let us nevermore forget


The graves they left behind, the bitter graves.

The Man From Eldorado

He's the man from Eldorado, and he's just arrived in town,
In moccasins and oily buckskin shirt.
He's gaunt as any Indian, and pretty nigh as brown;
He's greasy, and he smells of sweat and dirt.
He sports a crop of whiskers that would shame a healthy hog;
Hard work has racked his joints and stooped his back;
He slops along the sidewalk followed by his yellow dog,
But he's got a bunch of gold-dust in his sack.

He seems a little wistful as he blinks at all the lights,
And maybe he is thinking of his claim
And the dark and dwarfish cabin where he lay and dreamed at nights,
(Thank God, he'll never see the place again!)
Where he lived on tinned tomatoes, beef embalmed and sourdough bread,
On rusty beans and bacon furred with mould;
His stomach's out of kilter and his system full of lead,
But it's over, and his poke is full of gold.

He has panted at the windlass, he has loaded in the drift,
He has pounded at the face of oozy clay;
He has taxed himself to sickness, dark and damp and double shift,
He has labored like a demon night and day.
And now, praise God, it's over, and he seems to breathe again
Of new-mown hay, the warm, wet, friendly loam;
He sees a snowy orchard in a green and dimpling plain,
And a little vine-clad cottage, and it's--Home.

II

He's the man from Eldorado, and he's had a bite and sup,
And he's met in with a drouthy friend or two;
He's cached away his gold-dust, but he's sort of bucking up,

So he's kept enough to-night to see him through.
His eye is bright and genial, his tongue no longer lags;
`His heart is brimming o'er with joy and mirth;
He may be far from savory, he may be clad in rags,
`But to-night he feels as if he owns the earth.

Says he: "Boys, here is where the shaggy North and I will shake;
I thought I'd never manage to get free.
I kept on making misses; but at last I've got my stake;
There's no more thawing frozen muck for me.
I am going to God's Country, where I'll live the simple life;
I'll buy a bit of land and make a start;
I'll carve a little homestead, and I'll win a little wife,
And raise ten little kids to cheer my heart."

They signified their sympathy by crowding to the bar;
They bellied up three deep and drank his health.
He shed a radiant smile around and smoked a rank cigar;
They wished him honor, happiness and wealth.
They drank unto his wife to be--that unsuspecting maid;


They drank unto his children half a score;

And when they got through drinking very tenderly they laid
The man from Eldorado on the floor.

III

He's the man from Eldorado, and he's only starting in
To cultivate a thousand-dollar jag.

His poke is full of gold-dust and his heart is full of sin,
And he's dancing with a girl called Muckluck Mag.

She's as light as any fairy; she's as pretty as a peach;
She's mistress of the witchcraft to beguile;

There's sunshine in her manner, there is music in her speech,
And there's concentrated honey in her smile.

Oh, the fever of the dance-hall and the glitter and the shine,
The beauty, and the jewels, and the whirl,

The madness of the music, the rapture of the wine,
The languorous allurement of a girl!

She is like a lost madonna; he is gaunt, unkempt and grim;
But she fondles him and gazes in his eyes;

Her kisses seek his heavy lips, and soon it seems to him
He has staked a little claim in Paradise.

"Who's for a juicy two-step?" cries the master of the floor;
The music throbs with soft, seductive beat.

There's glitter, gilt and gladness; there are pretty girls galore;
There's a woolly man with moccasins on feet.

They know they've got him going; he is buying wine for all;
They crowd around as buzzards at a feast,

Then when his poke is empty they boost him from the hall,
And spurn him in the gutter like a beast.

He's the man from Eldorado, and he's painting red the town;
Behind he leaves a trail of yellow dust;

In a whirl of senseless riot he is ramping up and down;
There's nothing checks his madness and his lust.

And soon the word is passed around--it travels like a flame;
They fight to clutch his hand and call him friend,

The chevaliers of lost repute, the dames of sorry fame;
Then comes the grim awakening--the end.

IV

He's the man from Eldorado, and he gives a grand affair;
There's feasting, dancing, wine without restraint.

The smooth Beau Brummels of the bar, the faro men, are there;
The tinhorns and purveyors of red paint;

The sleek and painted women, their predacious eyes aglow-Sure
Klondike City never saw the like;

Then Muckluck Mag proposed the toast, "The giver of the show,
The livest sport that ever hit the pike."


The "live one" rises to his feet; he stammers to reply-And
then there comes before his muddled brain

A vision of green vastitudes beneath an April sky,
And clover pastures drenched with silver rain.

He knows that it can never be, that he is down and out;
Life leers at him with foul and fetid breath;

And then amid the revelry, the song and cheer and shout,
He suddenly grows grim and cold as death.

He grips the table tensely, and he says: "Dear friends of mine,
I've let you dip your fingers in my purse;

I've crammed you at my table, and I've drowned you in my wine,
And I've little left to give you but--my curse.

I've failed supremely in my plans; it's rather late to whine;
My poke is mighty weasened up and small.

I thank you each for coming here; the happiness is mine-And
now, you thieves and harlots, take it all."

He twists the thong from off his poke; he swings it o'er his head;
The nuggets fall around their feet like grain.

They rattle over roof and wall; they scatter, roll and spread;
The dust is like a shower of golden rain.

The guests a moment stand aghast, then grovel on the floor;
They fight, and snarl, and claw, like beasts of prey;

And then, as everybody grabbed and everybody swore,
The man from Eldorado slipped away.

V

He's the man from Eldorado, and they found him stiff and dead,
Half covered by the freezing ooze and dirt.

A clotted Colt was in his hand, a hole was in his head,
And he wore an old and oily buckskin shirt.

His eyes were fixed and horrible, as one who hails the end;
The frost had set him rigid as a log;

And there, half lying on his breast, his last and only friend,
There crouched and whined a mangy yellow dog.

The Man From Athabaska

Oh the wife she tried to tell me that 'twas nothing but the thrumming
Of a wood-pecker a-rapping on the hollow of a tree;

And she thought that I was fooling when I said it was the drumming
Of the mustering of legions, and 'twas calling unto me;
'Twas calling me to pull my freight and hop across the sea.

And a-mending of my fish-nets sure I started up in wonder,
For I heard a savage roaring and 'twas coming from afar;

Oh the wife she tried to tell me that 'twas only summer thunder,
And she laughed a bit sarcastic when I told her it was War;
'Twas the chariots of battle where the mighty armies are.

Then down the lake came Half-breed Tom with russet sail a-flying,
And the word he said was "War" again, so what was I to do?

Oh the dogs they took to howling, and the missis took to crying,
As I flung my silver foxes in the little birch canoe:
Yes, the old girl stood a-blubbing till an island hid the view.

Says the factor: "Mike, you're crazy! They have soldier men a-plenty.
You're as grizzled as a badger, and you're sixty year or so."

"But I haven't missed a scrap," says I, "since I was one and twenty.
And shall I miss the biggest? You can bet your whiskers -- no!"
So I sold my furs and started . . . and that's eighteen months ago.

For I joined the Foreign Legion, and they put me for a starter
In the trenches of the Argonne with the Boche a step away;

And the partner on my right hand was an apache from Montmartre;
On my left there was a millionaire from Pittsburg, U. S. A.
(Poor fellow! They collected him in bits the other day.)

But I'm sprier than a chipmunk, save a touch of the lumbago,
And they calls me Old Methoosalah, and `blagues' me all the day.

I'm their exhibition sniper, and they work me like a Dago,
And laugh to see me plug a Boche a half a mile away.
Oh I hold the highest record in the regiment, they say.

And at night they gather round me, and I tell them of my roaming
In the Country of the Crepuscule beside the Frozen Sea,

Where the musk-ox runs unchallenged, and the cariboo goes homing;
And they sit like little children, just as quiet as can be:
Men of every crime and colour, how they harken unto me!

And I tell them of the Furland, of the tumpline and the paddle,
Of secret rivers loitering, that no one will explore;

And I tell them of the ranges, of the pack-strap and the saddle,
And they fill their pipes in silence, and their eyes beseech for more;
While above the star-shells fizzle and the high explosives roar.

And I tell of lakes fish-haunted, where the big bull moose are calling,
And forests still as sepulchres with never trail or track;
And valleys packed with purple gloom, and mountain peaks appalling,
And I tell them of my cabin on the shore at Fond du Lac;


And I find myself a-thinking: Sure I wish that I was back.

So I brag of bear and beaver while the batteries are roaring,
And the fellows on the firing steps are blazing at the foe;

And I yarn of fur and feather when the `marmites' are a-soaring,
And they listen to my stories, seven `poilus' in a row,
Seven lean and lousy poilus with their cigarettes aglow.

And I tell them when it's over how I'll hike for Athabaska;
And those seven greasy poilus they are crazy to go too.

And I'll give the wife the "pickle-tub" I promised, and I'll ask her
The price of mink and marten, and the run of cariboo,
And I'll get my traps in order, and I'll start to work anew.

For I've had my fill of fighting, and I've seen a nation scattered,
And an army swung to slaughter, and a river red with gore,
And a city all a-smoulder, and . . . as if it really mattered,
For the lake is yonder dreaming, and my cabin's on the shore;
And the dogs are leaping madly, and the wife is singing gladly,
And I'll rest in Athabaska, and I'll leave it nevermore.

The Lure Of Little Voices

There's a cry from out the loneliness -- oh, listen, Honey, listen!
Do you hear it, do you fear it, you're a-holding of me so?

You're a-sobbing in your sleep, dear, and your lashes, how they glisten -Do
you hear the Little Voices all a-begging me to go?

All a-begging me to leave you. Day and night they're pleading, praying,
On the North-wind, on the West-wind, from the peak and from the plain;

Night and day they never leave me -- do you know what they are saying?
"He was ours before you got him, and we want him once again."

Yes, they're wanting me, they're haunting me, the awful lonely places;
They're whining and they're whimpering as if each had a soul;

They're calling from the wilderness, the vast and God-like spaces,
The stark and sullen solitudes that sentinel the Pole.

They miss my little camp-fires, ever brightly, bravely gleaming
In the womb of desolation, where was never man before;

As comradeless I sought them, lion-hearted, loving, dreaming,
And they hailed me as a comrade, and they loved me evermore.

And now they're all a-crying, and it's no use me denying;
The spell of them is on me and I'm helpless as a child;

My heart is aching, aching, but I hear them, sleeping, waking;
It's the Lure of Little Voices, it's the mandate of the Wild.

I'm afraid to tell you, Honey, I can take no bitter leaving;
But softly in the sleep-time from your love I'll steal away.

Oh, it's cruel, dearie, cruel, and it's God knows how I'm grieving;
But His loneliness is calling, and He knows I must obey.

The Low-Down White

This is the pay-day up at the mines, when the bearded brutes come down;
There's money to burn in the streets to-night, so I've sent my klooch to town,
With a haggard face and a ribband of red entwined in her hair of brown.


And I know at the dawn she'll come reeling home with the bottles, one, two, three --
One for herself, to drown her shame, and two big bottles for me,
To make me forget the thing I am and the man I used to be.


To make me forget the brand of the dog, as I crouch in this hideous place;
To make me forget once I kindled the light of love in a lady's face,
Where even the squalid Siwash now holds me a black disgrace.


Oh, I have guarded my secret well! And who would dream as I speak
In a tribal tongue like a rogue unhung, 'mid the ranch-house filth and reek,
I could roll to bed with a Latin phrase and rise with a verse of Greek?


Yet I was a senior prizeman once, and the pride of a college eight;
Called to the bar -- my friends were true! but they could not keep me straight;
Then came the divorce, and I went abroad and "died" on the River Plate.


But I'm not dead yet; though with half a lung there isn't time to spare,
And I hope that the year will see me out, and, thank God, no one will care --
Save maybe the little slim Siwash girl with the rose of shame in her hair.


She will come with the dawn, and the dawn is near; I can see its evil glow,
Like a corpse-light seen through a frosty pane in a night of want and woe;
And yonder she comes by the bleak bull-pines, swift staggering through the snow.

The Lost Master

"And when I come to die," he said,
"Ye shall not lay me out in state,
Nor leave your laurels at my head,
Nor cause your men of speech orate;
No monument your gift shall be,
No column in the Hall of Fame;
But just this line ye grave for me:


`He played the game.'"

So when his glorious task was done,
It was not of his fame we thought;
It was not of his battles won,
But of the pride with which he fought;
But of his zest, his ringing laugh,
His trenchant scorn of praise or blame:
And so we graved his epitaph,


"He played the game."

And so we, too, in humbler ways
Went forth to fight the fight anew,
And heeding neither blame nor praise,
We held the course he set us true.
And we, too, find the fighting sweet;
And we, too, fight for fighting's sake;
And though we go down in defeat,
And though our stormy hearts may break,
We will not do our Master shame:
We'll play the game, please God,


We'll play the game.

The Logger

In the moonless, misty night, with my little pipe alight,
I am sitting by the camp-fire's fading cheer;
Oh, the dew is falling chill on the dim, deer-haunted hill,
And the breakers in the bay are moaning drear.
The toilful hours are sped, the boys are long abed,
And I alone a weary vigil keep;
In the sightless, sullen sky I can hear the night-hawk cry,
And the frogs in frenzied chorus from the creek.

And somehow the embers' glow brings me back the long ago,
The days of merry laughter and light song;
When I sped the hours away with the gayest of the gay
In the giddy whirl of fashion's festal throng.
Oh, I ran a grilling race and I little recked the pace,
For the lust of youth ran riot in my blood;
But at last I made a stand in this God-forsaken land
Of the pine-tree and the mountain and the flood.

And now I've got to stay, with an overdraft to pay,
For pleasure in the past with future pain;
And I'm not the chap to whine, for if the chance were mine
I know I'd choose the old life once again.
With its woman's eyes a-shine, and its flood of golden wine;
Its fever and its frolic and its fun;
The old life with its din, its laughter and its sin -And
chuck me in the gutter when it's done.

Ah, well! it's past and gone, and the memory is wan,
That conjures up each old familiar face;
And here by fortune hurled, I am dead to all the world,
And I've learned to lose my pride and keep my place.
My ways are hard and rough, and my arms are strong and tough,
And I hew the dizzy pine till darkness falls;
And sometimes I take a dive, just to keep my heart alive,
Among the gay saloons and dancing halls.

In the distant, dinful town just a little drink to drown
The cares that crowd and canker in my brain;
Just a little joy to still set my pulses all a-thrill,
Then back to brutish labour once again.
And things will go on so until one day I shall know
That Death has got me cinched beyond a doubt;
Then I'll crawl away from sight, and morosely in the night
My weary, wasted life will peter out.

Then the boys will gather round, and they'll launch me in the ground,
And pile the stones the timber wolf to foil;
And the moaning pine will wave overhead a nameless grave,
Where the black snake in the sunshine loves to coil.
And they'll leave me there alone, and perhaps with softened tone
Speak of me sometimes in the camp-fire's glow,
As a played-out, broken chum, who has gone to Kingdom Come,


And who went the pace in England long ago.