



Produced by A. Light





BALLADS OF A CHEECHAKO

by Robert W. Service

[British-born Canadian Poet--1874-1958.]


     [Note on text:  Italicized stanzas will be indented 5 spaces.
     Italicized words or phrases will be capitalised.  Lines longer
     than 75 characters have been broken according to metre,
     and the continuation is indented two spaces.]


     [This etext was transcribed from an American 1909 edition.]




BALLADS OF A CHEECHAKO

by Robert W. Service

Author of "The Spell of the Yukon"




CONTENTS:



     To the Man of the High North
      My rhymes are rough, and often in my rhyming

     Men of the High North
      Men of the High North, the wild sky is blazing;

     The Ballad of the Northern Lights
      One of the Down and Out--that's me.  Stare at me well, ay, stare!

     The Ballad of the Black Fox Skin
      There was Claw-fingered Kitty and Windy Ike living the life of shame,

     The Ballad of Pious Pete
      I tried to refine that neighbor of mine, honest to God, I did.

     The Ballad of Blasphemous Bill
      I took a contract to bury the body of blasphemous Bill MacKie,

     The Ballad of One-Eyed Mike
      This is the tale that was told to me by the man with the crystal eye,

     The Ballad of the Brand
      'Twas up in a land long famed for gold, where women were far and rare,

     The Ballad of Hard-Luck Henry
      Now wouldn't you expect to find a man an awful crank

     The Man from Eldorado
      He's the man from Eldorado, and he's just arrived in town,

     My Friends
      The man above was a murderer, the man below was a thief;

     The Prospector
      I strolled up old Bonanza, where I staked in ninety-eight,

     The Black Sheep
      Hark to the ewe that bore him:

     The Telegraph Operator
      I will not wash my face;

     The Wood-Cutter
      The sky is like an envelope,

     The Song of the Mouth-Organ
      I'm a homely little bit of tin and bone;

     The Trail of Ninety-Eight
      Gold!  We leapt from our benches.  Gold!  We sprang from our stools.

     The Ballad of Gum-Boot Ben
      He was an old prospector with a vision bleared and dim.

     Clancy of the Mounted Police
      In the little Crimson Manual it's written plain and clear

     Lost
      "Black is the sky, but the land is white--

     L'Envoi
      We talked of yesteryears, of trails and treasure,





To the Man of the High North


     My rhymes are rough, and often in my rhyming
      I've drifted, silver-sailed, on seas of dream,
     Hearing afar the bells of Elfland chiming,
      Seeing the groves of Arcadie agleam.

     I was the thrall of Beauty that rejoices
      From peak snow-diademed to regal star;
     Yet to mine aerie ever pierced the voices,
      The pregnant voices of the Things That Are.

     The Here, the Now, the vast Forlorn around us;
      The gold-delirium, the ferine strife;
     The lusts that lure us on, the hates that hound us;
      Our red rags in the patch-work quilt of Life.

     The nameless men who nameless rivers travel,
      And in strange valleys greet strange deaths alone;
     The grim, intrepid ones who would unravel
      The mysteries that shroud the Polar Zone.

     These will I sing, and if one of you linger
      Over my pages in the Long, Long Night,
     And on some lone line lay a calloused finger,
      Saying:  "It's human-true--it hits me right";
     Then will I count this loving toil well spent;
     Then will I dream awhile--content, content.




Men of the High North


     Men of the High North, the wild sky is blazing;
      Islands of opal float on silver seas;
     Swift splendors kindle, barbaric, amazing;
      Pale ports of amber, golden argosies.
     Ringed all around us the proud peaks are glowing;
      Fierce chiefs in council, their wigwam the sky;
     Far, far below us the big Yukon flowing,
      Like threaded quicksilver, gleams to the eye.

     Men of the High