Rhymes of a Rolling Stone

Prelude

I sing no idle songs of dalliance days,

No dreams Elysian inspire my rhyming;

I have no Celia to enchant my lays,

No pipes of Pan have set my heart to chiming.

I am no wordsmith dripping gems divine

Into the golden chalice of a sonnet;

If love songs witch you, close this book of mine,

Waste no time on it.

Yet bring I to my work an eager joy,

A lusty love of life and all things human;

Still in me leaps the wonder of the boy,

A pride in man, a deathless faith in woman.

Still red blood calls, still rings the valiant fray;

Adventure beacons through the summer gloaming:

Oh long and long and long will be the day

Ere I come homing!

This earth is ours to love: lute, brush and pen,

They are but tongues to tell of life sincerely;

The thaumaturgic Day, the might of men,

O God of Scribes, grant us to grave them clearly!

Grant heart that homes in heart, then all is well.

Honey is honey-sweet, howe'er the hiving.

Each to his work, his wage at evening bell

The strength of striving.

A Rolling Stone

There's sunshine in the heart of me,

My blood sings in the breeze;

The mountains are a part of me,

I'm fellow to the trees.

My golden youth I'm squandering,

Sun-libertine am I;

A-wandering, a-wandering,

Until the day I die.

I was once, I declare, a Stone-Age man,

And I roomed in the cool of a cave;

I have known, I will swear, in a new life-span,

The fret and the sweat of a slave:

For far over all that folks hold worth,

There lives and there leaps in me

A love of the lowly things of earth,

And a passion to be free.

To pitch my tent with no prosy plan,

To range and to change at will;

To mock at the mastership of man,

To seek Adventure's thrill.

Carefree to be, as a bird that sings;

To go my own sweet way;

To reck not at all what may befall,

But to live and to love each day.

To make my body a temple pure

Wherein I dwell serene;

To care for the things that shall endure,

The simple, sweet and clean.

To oust out envy and hate and rage,

To breathe with no alarm;

For Nature shall be my anchorage,

And none shall do me harm.

To shun all lures that debauch the soul,

The orgied rites of the rich;

To eat my crust as a rover must

With the rough-neck down in the ditch.

To trudge by his side whate'er betide;

To share his fire at night;

To call him friend to the long trail-end,

And to read his heart aright.

To scorn all strife, and to view all life

With the curious eyes of a child;

From the plangent sea to the prairie,

From the slum to the heart of the Wild.

From the red-rimmed star to the speck of sand,

From the vast to the greatly small;

For I know that the whole for good is planned,

And I want to see it all.

To see it all, the wide world-way,

From the fig-leaf belt to the Pole;

With never a one to say me nay,

And none to cramp my soul.

In belly-pinch I will pay the price,

But God! let me be free;

For once I know in the long ago,

They made a slave of me.

In a flannel shirt from earth's clean dirt,

Here, pal, is my calloused hand!

Oh, I love each day as a rover may,

Nor seek to understand.

To enjoy is good enough for me;

The gipsy of God am I;

Then here's a hail to each flaring dawn!

And here's a cheer to the night that's gone!

And may I go a-roaming on

Until the day I die!

Then every star shall sing to me

Its song of liberty;

And every morn shall bring to me

Its mandate to be free.

In every throbbing vein of me

I'll feel the vast Earth-call;

O body, heart and brain of me

Praise Him who made it all!

The Soldier of Fortune

"Deny your God!" they ringed me with their spears;

Blood-crazed were they, and reeking from the strife;

Hell-hot their hate, and venom-fanged their sneers,

And one man spat on me and nursed a knife.

And there was I, sore wounded and alone,

I, the last living of my slaughtered band.

Oh sinister the sky, and cold as stone!

In one red laugh of horror reeled the land.

And dazed and desperate I faced their spears,

And like a flame out-leaped that naked knife,

And like a serpent stung their bitter jeers:

"Deny your God, and we will give you life."

Deny my God! Oh life was very sweet!

And it is hard in youth and hope to die;

And there my comrades dear lay at my feet,

And in that blear of blood soon must I lie.

And yet . . . I almost laughed -- it seemed so odd,

For long and long had I not vainly tried

To reason out and body forth my God,

And prayed for light, and doubted -- and denied:

Denied the Being I could not conceive,

Denied a life-to-be beyond the grave. . . .

And now they ask me, who do not believe,

Just to deny, to voice my doubt, to save

This life of mine that sings so in the sun,

The bloom of youth yet red upon my cheek,

My only life! -- O fools! 'tis easy done,

I will deny . . . and yet I do not speak.

"Deny your God!" their spears are all agleam,

And I can see their eyes with blood-lust shine;

Their snarling voices shrill into a scream,

And, mad to slay, they quiver for the sign.

Deny my God! yes, I could do it well;

Yet if I did, what of my race, my name?

How they would spit on me, these dogs of hell!

Spurn me, and put on me the brand of shame.

A white man's honour! what of that, I say?

Shall these black curs cry "Coward" in my face?

They who would perish for their gods of clay --

Shall I defile my country and my race?

My country! what's my country to me now?

Soldier of Fortune, free and far I roam;

All men are brothers in my heart, I vow;

The wide and wondrous world is all my home.

My country! reverent of her splendid Dead,

Her heroes proud, her martyrs pierced with pain:

For me her puissant blood was vainly shed;

For me her drums of battle beat in vain,

And free I fare, half-heedless of her fate:

No faith, no flag I owe -- then why not seek

This last loop-hole of life? Why hesitate?

I will deny . . . and yet I do not speak.

"Deny your God!" their spears are poised on high,

And tense and terrible they wait the word;

And dark and darker glooms the dreary sky,

And in that hush of horror no thing stirred.

Then, through the ringing terror and sheer hate

Leaped there a vision to me -- Oh, how far!

A face, Her face . . . through all my stormy fate

A joy, a strength, a glory and a star.

Beneath the pines, where lonely camp-fires gleam,

In seas forlorn, amid the deserts drear,

How I had gladdened to that face of dream!

And never, never had it seemed so dear.

O silken hair that veils the sunny brow!

O eyes of grey, so tender and so true!

O lips of smiling sweetness! must I now

For ever and for ever go from you?

Ah, yes, I must . . . for if I do this thing,

How can I look into your face again?

Knowing you think me more than half a king,

I with my craven heart, my honour slain.

No! no! my mind's made up. I gaze above,

Into that sky insensate as a stone;

Not for my creed, my country, but my Love

Will I stand up and meet my death alone.

Then though it be to utter dark I sink,

The God that dwells in me is not denied;

"Best" triumphs over "Beast", -- and so I think

Humanity itself is glorified. . . .

"And now, my butchers, I embrace my fate.

Come! let my heart's blood slake the thirsty sod.

Curst be the life you offer! Glut your hate!

Strike! Strike, you dogs! I'll not deny my God."

I saw the spears that seemed a-leap to slay,

All quiver earthward at the headman's nod;

And in a daze of dream I heard him say:

"Go, set him free who serves so well his God!"

The Gramaphone at Fond-Du-Lac

Now Eddie Malone got a swell grammyfone to draw all the trade to his store;

An' sez he: "Come along for a season of song, which the like ye had niver before."

Then Dogrib, an' Slave, an' Yellow-knife brave, an' Cree in his dinky canoe,

Confluated near, to see an' to hear Ed's grammyfone make its dayboo.

Then Ed turned the crank, an' there on the bank they squatted like bumps on a log.

For acres around there wasn't a sound, not even the howl of a dog.

When out of the horn there sudden was born such a marvellous elegant tone;

An' then like a spell on that auddyence fell the voice of its first grammyfone.

"Bad medicine!" cried Old Tom, the One-eyed, an' made for to jump in the lake;

But no one gave heed to his little stampede, so he guessed he had made a mistake.

Then Roll-in-the-Mud, a chief of the blood, observed in choice Chippewayan:

"You've brought us canned beef, an' it's now my belief that this here's a case of 'canned man'."

Well, though I'm not strong on the Dago in song, that sure got me goin' for fair.

There was Crusoe an' Scotty, an' Ma'am Shoeman Hank, an' Melber an' Bonchy was there.

'Twas silver an' gold, an' sweetness untold to hear all them big guinneys sing;

An' thick all around an' inhalin' the sound, them Indians formed in a ring.

So solemn they sat, an' they smoked an' they spat, but their eyes sort o' glistened an' shone;

Yet niver a word of approvin' occurred till that guy Harry Lauder came on.

Then hunter of moose, an' squaw an' papoose jest laughed till their stummicks was sore;

Six times Eddie set back that record an' yet they hollered an' hollered for more.

I'll never forget that frame-up, you bet; them caverns of sunset agleam;

Them still peaks aglow, them shadders below, an' the lake like a petrified dream;

The teepees that stood by the edge of the wood; the evenin' star blinkin' alone;

The peace an' the rest, an' final an' best, the music of Ed's grammyfone.

Then sudden an' clear there rang on my ear a song mighty simple an' old;

Heart-hungry an' high it thrilled to the sky, all about "silver threads in the gold".

'Twas tender to tears, an' it brung back the years, the mem'ries that hallow an' yearn;

'Twas home-love an' joy, 'twas the thought of my boy . . . an' right there I vowed I'd return.

Big Four-finger Jack was right at my back, an' I saw with a kind o' surprise,

He gazed at the lake with a heartful of ache, an' the tears irrigated his eyes.

An' sez he: "Cuss me, pard! but that there hits me hard; I've a mother does nuthin' but wait.

She's turned eighty-three, an' she's only got me, an' I'm scared it'll soon be too late."

* * * * *

On Fond-du-lac's shore I'm hearin' once more that blessed old grammyfone play.

The summer's all gone, an' I'm still livin' on in the same old haphazardous way.

Oh, I cut out the booze, an' with muscles an' thews I corralled all the coin to go back;

But it wasn't to be: he'd a mother, you see, so I -- slipped it to Four-finger Jack.

The Land of Beyond

Have ever you heard of the Land of Beyond,

That dreams at the gates of the day?

Alluring it lies at the skirts of the skies,

And ever so far away;

Alluring it calls: O ye the yoke galls,

And ye of the trail overfond,

With saddle and pack, by paddle and track,

Let's go to the Land of Beyond!

Have ever you stood where the silences brood,

And vast the horizons begin,

At the dawn of the day to behold far away

The goal you would strive for and win?

Yet ah! in the night when you gain to the height,

With the vast pool of heaven star-spawned,

Afar and agleam, like a valley of dream,

Still mocks you a Land of Beyond.

Thank God! there is always a Land of Beyond

For us who are true to the trail;

A vision to seek, a beckoning peak,

A farness that never will fail;

A pride in our soul that mocks at a goal,

A manhood that irks at a bond,

And try how we will, unattainable still,

Behold it, our Land of Beyond!

Sunshine

Flat as a drum-head stretch the haggard snows;

The mighty skies are palisades of light;

The stars are blurred; the silence grows and grows;

Vaster and vaster vaults the icy night.

Here in my sleeping-bag I cower and pray:

"Silence and night, have pity! stoop and slay."

I have not slept for many, many days.

I close my eyes with weariness -- that's all.

I still have strength to feed the drift-wood blaze,

That flickers weirdly on the icy wall.

I still have strength to pray: "God rest her soul,

Here in the awful shadow of the Pole."

There in the cabin's alcove low she lies,

Still candles gleaming at her head and feet;

All snow-drop white, ash-cold, with closed eyes,

Lips smiling, hands at rest -- O God, how sweet!

How all unutterably sweet she seems. . . .

Not dead, not dead indeed -- she dreams, she dreams.

II

"Sunshine", I called her, and she brought, I vow,

God's blessed sunshine to this life of mine.

I was a rover, of the breed who plough

Life's furrow in a far-flung, lonely line;

The wilderness my home, my fortune cast

In a wild land of dearth, barbaric, vast.

When did I see her first? Long had I lain

Groping my way to life through fevered gloom.

Sudden the cloud of darkness left my brain;

A velvet bar of sunshine pierced the room,

And in that mellow glory aureoled

She stood, she stood, all golden in its gold.

Sunshine! O miracle! the earth grew glad;

Radiant each blade of grass, each living thing.

What a huge strength, high hope, proud will I had!

All the wide world with rapture seemed to ring.

Would she but wed me? Yes: then fared we forth

Into the vast, unvintageable North.

III

In Muskrat Land the conies leap,

The wavies linger in their flight;

The jewelled, snakelike rivers creep;

The sun, sad rogue, is out all night;

The great wood bison paws the sand,

In Muskrat Land, in Muskrat Land.

In Muskrat Land dim streams divide

The tundras belted by the sky.

How sweet in slim canoe to glide,

And dream, and let the world go by!

Build gay camp-fires on greening strand!

In Muskrat Land, in Muskrat Land.

IV

And so we dreamed and drifted, she and I;

And how she loved that free, unfathomed life!

There in the peach-bloom of the midnight sky,

The silence welded us, true man and wife.

Then North and North invincibly we pressed

Beyond the Circle, to the world's white crest.

And on the wind-flailed Arctic waste we stayed,

Dwelt with the Huskies by the Polar sea.

Fur had they, white fox, marten, mink to trade,

And we had food-stuff, bacon, flour and tea.

So we made snug, chummed up with all the band:

Sudden the Winter swooped on Husky Land.

V

What was that ill so sinister and dread,

Smiting the tribe with sickness to the bone?

So that we waked one morn to find them fled;

So that we stood and stared, alone, alone.

Bravely she smiled and looked into my eyes;

Laughed at their troubled, stern, foreboding pain;

Gaily she mocked the menace of the skies,

Turned to our cheery cabin once again,

Saying: "'Twill soon be over, dearest one,

The long, long night: then O the sun, the sun!"

God made a heart of gold, of gold,

Shining and sweet and true;

Gave it a home of fairest mould,

Blest it, and called it -- You.

God gave the rose its grace of glow,

And the lark its radiant glee;

But, better than all, I know, I know

God gave you, Heart, to me.

VII

She was all sunshine in those dubious days;

Our cabin beaconed with defiant light;

We chattered by the friendly drift-wood blaze;

Closer and closer cowered the hag-like night.

A wolf-howl would have been a welcome sound,

And there was none in all that stricken land;

Yet with such silence, darkness, death around,

Learned we to love as few can understand.

Spirit with spirit fused, and soul with soul,

There in the sullen shadow of the Pole.

VIII

What was that haunting horror of the night?

Brave was she; buoyant, full of sunny cheer.

Why was her face so small, so strangely white?

Then did I turn from her, heart-sick with fear;

Sought in my agony the outcast snows;

Prayed in my pain to that insensate sky;

Grovelled and sobbed and cursed, and then arose:

"Sunshine! O heart of gold! to die! to die!"

IX

She died on Christmas day -- it seems so sad

That one you love should die on Christmas day.

Head-bowed I knelt by her; O God! I had

No tears to shed, no moan, no prayer to pray.

I heard her whisper: "Call me, will you, dear?

They say Death parts, but I won't go away.

I will be with you in the cabin here;

Oh I will plead with God to let me stay!

Stay till the Night is gone, till Spring is nigh,

Till sunshine comes . . . be brave . . . I'm tired . . . good-bye. . . ."

X

For weeks, for months I have not seen the sun;

The minatory dawns are leprous pale;

The felon days malinger one by one;

How like a dream Life is! how vain! how stale!

I, too, am faint; that vampire-like disease

Has fallen on me; weak and cold am I,

Hugging a tiny fire in fear I freeze:

The cabin must be cold, and so I try

To bear the frost, the frost that fights decay,

The frost that keeps her beautiful alway.

XI

She lies within an icy vault;

It glitters like a cave of salt.

All marble-pure and angel-sweet

With candles at her head and feet,

Under an ermine robe she lies.

I kiss her hands, I kiss her eyes:

"Come back, come back, O Love, I pray,

Into this house, this house of clay!

Answer my kisses soft and warm;

Nestle again within my arm.

Come! for I know that you are near;

Open your eyes and look, my dear.

Just for a moment break the mesh;

Back from the spirit leap to flesh.

Weary I wait; the night is black;

Love of my life, come back, come back!"

XII

Last night maybe I was a little mad,

For as I prayed despairful by her side,

Such a strange, antic visioning I had:

Lo! it did seem her eyes were open wide.

Surely I must have dreamed! I stared once more. . . .

No, 'twas a candle's trick, a shadow cast.

There were her lashes locking as before.

(Oh, but it filled me with a joy so vast!)

No, 'twas a freak, a fancy of the brain,

(Oh, but to-night I'll try again, again!)

XIII

It was no dream; now do I know that Love

Leapt from the starry battlements of Death;

For in my vigil as I bent above,

Calling her name with eager, burning breath,

Sudden there came a change: again I saw

The radiance of the rose-leaf stain her cheek;

Rivers of rapture thrilled in sunny thaw;

Cleft were her coral lips as if to speak;

Curved were her tender arms as if to cling;

Open the flower-like eyes of lucent blue,

Looking at me with love so pitying

That I could fancy Heaven shining through.

"Sunshine," I faltered, "stay with me, oh, stay!"

Yet ere I finished, in a moment's flight,

There in her angel purity she lay --

Ah! but I know she'll come again to-night.

Even as radiant sword leaps from the sheath,

Soul from the body leaps -- we call it death.

Even as this line I write,

Do I know that she is near;

Happy am I, every night

Comes she back to bid me cheer;

Kissing her, I hold her fast;

Win her into life at last.

Did I dream that yesterday

On yon mountain ridge a glow

Soft as moonstone paled away,

Leaving less forlorn the snow?

Could it be the sun? Oh, fain

Would I see the sun again!

Oh, to see a coral dawn

Gladden to a crocus glow!

Day's a spectre dim and wan,

Dancing on the furtive snow;

Night's a cloud upon my brain:

Oh, to see the sun again!

You who find us in this place,

Have you pity in your breast;

Let us in our last embrace,

Under earth sun-hallowed rest.

Night's a claw upon my brain:

Oh, to see the sun again!

XV

The Sun! at last the Sun! I write these lines,

Here on my knees, with feeble, fumbling hand.

Look! in yon mountain cleft a radiance shines,

Gleam of a primrose -- see it thrill, expand,

Grow glorious. Dear God be praised! it streams

Into the cabin in a gush of gold.

Look! there she stands, the angel of my dreams,

All in the radiant shimmer aureoled;

First as I saw her from my bed of pain;

First as I loved her when the darkness passed.

Now do I know that Life is not in vain;

Now do I know God cares, at last, at last!

Light outlives dark, joy grief, and Love's the sum:

Heart of my heart! Sunshine! I come . . . I come. . . .

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