Rhymes Of A Rolling Stone Part 14

I see the lake wan in the moon, and from the shadow black, There drifts a little, _EMPTY_ birch canoe.

We're here beyond the Circle, where there's never wrong nor right; We aren't spliced according to the law; But by the G.o.ds I hail you on this hushed and holy night As the mother of my children, and my squaw.

I see your little slender face set in the firelight glow; I pray that I may never make it sad; I hear you croon a baby song, all slumber-soft and low -- G.o.d bless you, little Laughing Eyes! I'm glad.

Home and Love

Just Home and Love! the words are small Four little letters unto each; And yet you will not find in all The wide and gracious range of speech Two more so tenderly complete: When angels talk in Heaven above, I'm sure they have no words more sweet Than Home and Love.

Just Home and Love! it's hard to guess Which of the two were best to gain; Home without Love is bitterness; Love without Home is often pain.

No! each alone will seldom do; Somehow they travel hand and glove: If you win one you must have two, Both Home and Love.

And if you've both, well then I'm sure You ought to sing the whole day long; It doesn't matter if you're poor With these to make divine your song.

And so I praisefully repeat, When angels talk in Heaven above, There are no words more simply sweet Than Home and Love.

I'm Scared of it All

I'm scared of it all, G.o.d's truth! so I am; It's too big and brutal for me.

My nerve's on the raw and I don't give a d.a.m.n For all the "hoorah" that I see.

I'm pinned between subway and overhead train, Where automobillies swoop down: Oh, I want to go back to the timber again -- I'm scared of the terrible town.

I want to go back to my lean, ashen plains; My rivers that flash into foam; My ultimate valleys where solitude reigns; My trail from Fort Churchill to Nome.

My forests packed full of mysterious gloom, My ice-fields agrind and aglare: The city is deadfalled with danger and doom -- I know that I'm safer up there.

I watch the wan faces that flash in the street; All kinds and all cla.s.ses I see.

Yet never a one in the million I meet, Has the smile of a comrade for me.

Just jaded and panting like dogs in a pack; Just tensed and intent on the goal: O G.o.d! but I'm lonesome -- I wish I was back, Up there in the land of the Pole.

I wish I was back on the Hunger Plateaus, And seeking the lost caribou; I wish I was up where the Coppermine flows To the kick of my little canoe.

I'd like to be far on some weariful sh.o.r.e, In the Land of the Blizzard and Bear; Oh, I wish I was snug in the Arctic once more, For I know I am safer up there!

I prowl in the canyons of dismal unrest; I cringe -- I'm so weak and so small.

I can't get my bearings, I'm crushed and oppressed With the haste and the waste of it all.

The slaves and the madman, the l.u.s.t and the sweat, The fear in the faces I see; The getting, the spending, the fever, the fret -- It's too bleeding cruel for me.

I feel it's all wrong, but I can't tell you why -- The palace, the hovel next door; The insolent towers that sprawl to the sky, The crush and the rush and the roar.

I'm trapped like a fox and I fear for my pelt; I cower in the crash and the glare; Oh, I want to be back in the avalanche belt, For I know that it's safer up there!

I'm scared of it all: Oh, afar I can hear The voice of my solitudes call!

We're nothing but brute with a little veneer, And nature is best after all.

There's tumult and terror abroad in the street; There's menace and doom in the air; I've got to get back to my thousand-mile beat; The trail where the cougar and silver-tip meet; The snows and the camp-fire, with wolves at my feet; Good-bye, for it's safer up there.

_To be forming good habits up there; To be starving on rabbits up there; In your hunger and woe, Though it's sixty below, Oh, I know that it's safer up there!_

A Song of Success

Ho! we were strong, we were swift, we were brave.

Youth was a challenge, and Life was a fight.

All that was best in us gladly we gave, Sprang from the rally, and leapt for the height.

Smiling is Love in a foam of Spring flowers: Harden our hearts to him -- on let us press!

Oh, what a triumph and pride shall be ours!

See where it beacons, the star of success!

Cares seem to crowd on us -- so much to do; New fields to conquer, and time's on the wing.

Grey hairs are showing, a wrinkle or two; Somehow our footstep is losing its spring.

Pleasure's forsaken us, Love ceased to smile; Youth has been funeralled; Age travels fast.

Sometimes we wonder: is it worth while?

There! we have gained to the summit at last.

Aye, we have triumphed! Now must we haste, Revel in victory . . . why! what is wrong?

Life's choicest vintage is flat to the taste -- Are we too late? Have we laboured too long?

Wealth, power, fame we hold . . . ah! but the truth: Would we not give this vain glory of ours For one mad, glad year of glorious youth, Life in the Springtide, and Love in the flowers.

The Song of the Camp-Fire

I

Heed me, feed me, I am hungry, I am red-tongued with desire; Boughs of balsam, slabs of cedar, gummy f.a.gots of the pine, Heap them on me, let me hug them to my eager heart of fire, Roaring, soaring up to heaven as a symbol and a sign.

Bring me knots of sunny maple, silver birch and tamarack; Leaping, sweeping, I will lap them with my ardent wings of flame; I will kindle them to glory, I will beat the darkness back; Streaming, gleaming, I will goad them to my glory and my fame.

Bring me gnarly limbs of live-oak, aid me in my frenzied fight; Strips of iron-wood, scaly blue-gum, writhing redly in my hold; With my lunge of lurid lances, with my whips that flail the night, They will burgeon into beauty, they will foliate in gold.

Let me star the dim sierras, stab with light the inland seas; Roaming wind and roaring darkness! seek no mercy at my hands; I will mock the marly heavens, lamp the purple prairies, I will flaunt my deathless banners down the far, unhouseled lands.

In the vast and vaulted pine-gloom where the pillared forests frown, By the sullen, b.e.s.t.i.a.l rivers running where G.o.d only knows, On the starlit coral beaches when the combers thunder down, In the death-spell of the barrens, in the shudder of the snows; In a blazing belt of triumph from the palm-leaf to the pine, As a symbol of defiance lo! the wilderness I span; And my beacons burn exultant as an everlasting sign Of unending domination, of the mastery of Man; I, the Life, the fierce Uplifter, I that weaned him from the mire; I, the angel and the devil, I, the tyrant and the slave; I, the Spirit of the Struggle; I, the mighty G.o.d of Fire; I, the Maker and Destroyer; I, the Giver and the Grave.

II

Gather round me, boy and grey-beard, frontiersman of every kind.

Few are you, and far and lonely, yet an army forms behind: By your camp-fires shall they know you, ashes scattered to the wind.

Peer into my heart of solace, break your bannock at my blaze; Smoking, stretched in lazy shelter, build your castles as you gaze; Or, it may be, deep in dreaming, think of dim, unhappy days.