



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 North, you who have known it;
      You in whose hearts its splendors have abode;
     Can you renounce it, can you disown it?
      Can you forget it, its glory and its goad?
     Where is the hardship, where is the pain of it?
      Lost in the limbo of things you've forgot;
     Only remain the guerdon and gain of it;
      Zest of the foray, and God, how you fought!

     You who have made good, you foreign faring;
      You money magic to far lands