Embers Part 19

The Twins that drive her to do her best Where the Roaring Forties rage From the Fastnet Height to the Liberty Light, And the Customs landing-stage.

Where the crank-shafts pitch in the iron ditch, Where the main-shaft swims and glides, Where the boilers keep, in the sullen deep, A master-hand on the Tides;

Where the reeking shuttle and booming bar Keep time in the hum of the toiling hive,-- The men of the deep, while the travellers sleep, Their steel-clad coursers drive.

And Davy Jones' locker is full Of the labour that moves the world; And brave they be who serve the sea To keep our flags unfurled:

The Union Jack and the Stripes and Stars, Gallant and free and true, In a world-wide trade, and a fame well made, And humanity's work to do.

Now list, ye landsmen, as ye roam, To the voice of the men offsh.o.r.e, Who've sailed in the old ship Never Return, With the great First Commodore.

They fitted foreign (G.o.d keeps the sea), They stepped aboard (G.o.d breaks the wind).

And the babe that held by his father's knee, He leaves, with his la.s.s, behind.

And the lad will sail as his father sailed, And a la.s.s she will wait again; And he'll get his scrip in his father's ship, And he'll sail to the Southern Main;

And he'll sail to the North, and he'll make to the East, And he'll overhaul the West; And he'll pa.s.s outspent as his father went From his landbirds in the nest.

There are hearts that bleed, there are mouths to feed, (Now one and all, ye landsmen, list) And the rent's to pay on the quarter-day-- (What ye give will never be missed)

And you'll never regret, as your whistle you wet, In Avenue Number Five, That you gave your "quid" to the lonely kid And the widow, to keep 'em alive.

So out with your golden shilling, my lad, And your bright bank-note, my dear!

We are safe to-night near the Liberty Light, And the mariner says, What Cheer!

THE AUSTRALIAN STOCKRIDER

I ride to the tramp and shuffle of hoofs Away to the wild waste land, I can see the sun on the station roofs, And a stretch of the shifting sand; The forest of horns is a shaking sea, Where white waves tumble and pa.s.s; The c.o.c.katoo screams in the myall-tree, And the adder-head gleams in the gra.s.s.

The clouds swing out from beyond the hills And valance the face of the sky, And the Spirit of Winds creeps up and fills The plains with a plaintive cry; A boundary-rider on lonely beat Creeps round the horizon's rim; He has little to do, and plenty to eat, And the world is a blank to him.

His friends are his pipe, and dog, and tea, His wants, they are soon supplied; And his mind, like the weeping myall-tree, May droop on his weary ride, But he lives his life in his quiet way, Forgetting,--perhaps forgot,-- Till another rider will come some day, And he will have ridden, G.o.d wot!

To the Wider Plains with the measureless bounds: And I know, if I had my choice, I would rather ride in those pleasant grounds, Than to sit 'neath the spell of the voice Of the sweetest seraph that you could find In all the celestial place; And I hope that the Father, whose heart is kind, When I speak to Him face to face,

Will give me something to do up there Among all the folks that have died, That will give me freedom and change of air, If it's only to boundary ride: For I somehow think, in the Great Stampede, When the world crowds up to the Bar, The unluckiest mortals will be decreed To camp on the luckiest star.

THE BRIDGE OF THE HUNDRED SPANS

It was the time that the Long Divide Blooms and glows like an hour-old bride; It was the days when the cattle come Back from their winter wand'rings home; Time when the Kicking Horse shows its teeth, Snarls and foams with a demon's breath; When the sun with a million levers lifts Abodes of snow from the rocky rifts; When the line-man's eyes, like the lynx's, scans The lofty Bridge of the Hundred Spans.

Round a curve, down a sharp incline, If the red-eyed lantern made no sign, Swept the train, and upon the bridge That binds a canon from ridge to ridge.

Never a watchman like old Carew; Knew his duty, and did it, too; Good at scouting when scouting paid, Saved a post from an Indian raid-- Trapper, miner, and mountain guide, Less one arm in a lumber slide; Walked the line like a panther's guard, Like a maverick penned in a branding-yard.

"Right as rain," said the engineers, "With the old man working his eyes and ears."

"Safe with Carew on the mountain wall,"

Was how they put it, in Montreal.

Right and safe was it East and West Till a demon rose on the mountain crest, And drove at its shoulders angry spears, That it rose from its sleep of a thousand years, That its heaving breast broke free the cords Of imprisoned snow as with flaming swords; And, like a star from its frozen height, An avalanche leaped one spring-tide night; Leaped with a power not G.o.d's or man's To smite the Bridge of the Hundred Spans.

It smote a score of the spans; it slew With its icy squadrons old Carew.

Asleep he lay in his snow-bound grave, While the train drew on that he could not save; It would drop, doom-deep, through the trap of death, From the light above, to the dark beneath; And town and village both far and near Would mourn the tragedy ended here.

One more hap in a hapless world, One more wreck where the tide is swirled, One more heap in a waste of sand, One more clasp of a palsied hand, One more cry to a soundless Word, One more flight of a wingless bird; The ceaseless falling, the countless groan, The waft of a leaf and the fall of a stone; Ever the cry that a Hand will save, Ever the end in a fast-closed grave; Ever and ever the useless prayer, Beating the walls of a mute despair.

Doom, all doom--nay then, not all doom!

Rises a hope from the fast-closed tomb.

Write not "Lost," with its grinding bans, On life, or the Bridge of the Hundred Spans.

See, on the canon's western ridge, There stands a girl! She beholds the bridge Smitten and broken; she sees the need For a warning swift, and a daring deed.

See then the act of a simple girl; Learn from it, thinker, and priest, and churl.

See her, the lantern between her teeth, Crossing the quivering trap of death.

Hand over hand on a swaying rail, Sharp in her ears and her heart the wail Of a hundred lives; and she has no fear Save that her prayer be not granted her.

Cold is the snow on the rail, and chill The wind that comes from the frozen hill.

Her hair blows free and her eyes are full Of the look that makes Heaven merciful-- Merciful, ah! quick, shut your eyes, Lest you wish to see how a brave girl dies!

Dies--not yet; for her firm hands clasped The solid bridge, as the breach out-gasped, And the rail that had held her downward swept, Where old Carew in his snow-grave slept.

Now up and over the steep incline, She speeds with the red light for a sign; She hears the cry of the coming train, it trembles like lanceheads through her brain; And round the curve, with a foot as fleet As a sinner's that flees from the Judgment-seat, She flies; and the signal swings, and then She knows no more; but the enginemen Lifted her, bore her, where women brought The flush to her cheek, and with kisses caught The warm breath back to her pallid lips, The life from lives that were near eclipse; Blessed her, and praised her, and begged her name That all of their kindred should know her fame; Should tell how a girl from a cattle-ranche That night defeated an avalanche.

Where is the wonder the engineer Of the train she saved, in half a year Had wooed her and won her? And here they are For their homeward trip in a parlour car!

Which goes to show that Old Nature's plans Were wrecked with the Bridge of the Hundred Spans.

NELL LATORE

Rebel? . . . I grant you,--my comrades then Were called Old Pascal Dubois' Men Half-breeds all of us . . . I, a scamp, The best long-shot in the Touchwood Camp; Muscle and nerve like strings of steel, Sound in the game of bit and heel-- There's your guide-book. . . . But, Jeanne Amray, Telegraph-clerk at Sturgeon Bay, French and thoroughbred, proud and sweet, Sunshine down to her glancing feet, Sang one song 'neath the northern moon That changed G.o.d's world to a tropic noon; And Love burned up on its golden floor Years of pa.s.sion for Nell Latore-- Nell Latore with her tawny hair, Glowing eyes and her reckless air; Lithe as an alder, straight and tall-- Pride and sorrow of Rise-and-Fall!

Indian blood in her veins ran wild, And a Saxon father called her child; Women feared her, and men soon found When they trod on forbidden ground.

Ride! there's never a cayuse knew Saddle slip of her; pistols, too, Seemed to learn in her hands a knack How to travel a dead-sure track.

Something in both alike maybe, Something kindred in ancestry, Some warm touch of an ancient pride Drew my feet to her willing side.

My comrade, she, in the Touchwood Camp, To ride, hunt, trail by the fire-fly lamp; To track the moose to his moose-yard; pa.s.s The bustard's doom through the prairie gra.s.s; To hark at night to the crying loon Beat idle wings on the still lagoon; To hide from death in the drifting snow, To slay the last of the buffalo. . . .

Ah, well, I speak of the days that were; And I swear to you, I was kind to her.

I lost her. How are the best friends lost?

The lightning lines of our souls got crossed-- Crossed, and could never again be free Till Death should call from his midnight sea.

One spring brought me my wedding day, Brought me my bright-eyed Jeanne Amray; Brought that night to our cabin door My old, lost comrade, Nell Latore.