Rhymes Of A Rolling Stone Part 10

Well, maybe we won't find it -- and at least we've got the "life".

We're both as brown as berries, and could wrestle with a bear: (That bannock's raising nicely, pal; just jab it with your knife.) Fine specimens of manhood they would reckon us out there.

It's the tracking and the packing and the poling in the sun; It's the sleeping in the open, it's the rugged, unfaked food; It's the snow-shoe and the paddle, and the campfire and the gun, And when I think of what I was, I know that it is good.

Just think of how we've poled all day up this strange little stream; Since life began no eye of man has seen this place before; How fearless all the wild things are! the banks with goose-gra.s.s gleam, And there's a bronzy musk-rat sitting sniffing at his door.

A mother duck with brood of ten comes squattering along; The tawny, white-winged ptarmigan are flying all about; And in that swirly, golden pool, a restless, gleaming throng, The trout are waiting till we condescend to take them out.

Ah, yes, it's good! I'll bet that there's no doctor like the Wild: (Just turn that bannock over there; it's getting nicely brown.) I might be in my grave by now, forgotten and reviled, Or rotting like a sickly cur in some far, foreign town.

I might be that vile thing I was, -- it all seems like a dream; I owed a man a grudge one time that only life could pay; And yet it's half-forgotten now -- how petty these things seem!

(But that's "another story", pal; I'll tell it you some day.)

How strange two "irresponsibles" should chum away up here!

But round the Arctic Circle friends are few and far between.

We've shared the same camp-fire and tent for nigh on seven year, And never had a word that wasn't cheering and serene.

We've halved the toil and split the spoil, and borne each other's packs; By all the Wild's freemasonry we're brothers, tried and true; We've swept on danger side by side, and fought it back to back, And you would die for me, old pal, and I would die for you.

Now there was that time I got lost in Rory Bory Land, (How quick the blizzards sweep on one across that Polar sea!) You formed a rescue crew of One, and saw a frozen hand That stuck out of a drift of snow -- and, partner, it was Me.

But I got even, did I not, that day the paddle broke?

White water on the Coppermine -- a rock -- a split canoe -- Two fellows struggling in the foam (one couldn't swim a stroke): A half-drowned man I dragged ash.o.r.e . . . and partner, it was You.

In Rory Borealis Land the winter's long and black.

The silence seems a solid thing, shot through with wolfish woe; And rowelled by the eager stars the skies vault vastly back, And man seems but a little mite on that weird-lit plateau.

No thing to do but smoke and yarn of wild and misspent lives, Beside the camp-fire there we sat -- what tales you told to me Of love and hate, and chance and fate, and temporary wives!

In Rory Borealis Land, beside the Arctic Sea.

One yarn you told me in those days I can remember still; It seemed as if I visioned it, so sharp you sketched it in; Bellona was the name, I think; a coast town in Brazil, Where n.o.body did anything but serenade and sin.

I saw it all -- the jewelled sea, the golden scythe of sand, The stately pillars of the palms, the feathery bamboo, The red-roofed houses and the swart, sun-dominated land, The people ever children, and the heavens ever blue.

You told me of that girl of yours, that blossom of old Spain, All glamour, grace and witchery, all pa.s.sion, verve and glow.

How maddening she must have been! You made me see her plain, There by our little camp-fire, in the silence and the snow.

You loved her and she loved you. She'd a husband, too, I think, A doctor chap, you told me, whom she treated like a dog, A white man living on the beach, a hopeless slave to drink -- (Just turn that bannock over there, that's propped against the log.)

That story seemed to strike me, pal -- it happens every day: You had to go away awhile, then somehow it befell The doctor chap discovered, gave her up, and disappeared; You came back, tired of her in time . . . there's nothing more to tell.

Hist! see those willows silvering where swamp and river meet!

Just reach me up my rifle quick; that's Mister Moose, I know -- There now, _I'VE GOT HIM DEAD TO RIGHTS_ . . . but h.e.l.l! we've lots to eat I don't believe in taking life -- we'll let the beggar go.

Heigh ho! I'm tired; the bannock's cooked; it's time we both turned in.

The morning mist is coral-kissed, the morning sky is gold.

The camp-fire's a confessional -- what funny yarns we spin!

It sort of made me think a bit, that story that you told.

The fig-leaf belt and Rory Bory are such odd extremes, Yet after all how very small this old world seems to be . . .

Yes, that was quite a yarn, old pal, and yet to me it seems You missed the point: the point is that the "doctor chap" . . . was _ME_. . . .

The Lost Master

"And when I come to die," he said, "Ye shall not lay me out in state, Nor leave your laurels at my head, Nor cause your men of speech orate; No monument your gift shall be, No column in the Hall of Fame; But just this line ye grave for me: 'He played the game.'"

So when his glorious task was done, It was not of his fame we thought; It was not of his battles won, But of the pride with which he fought; But of his zest, his ringing laugh, His trenchant scorn of praise or blame: And so we graved his epitaph, "He played the game."

And so we, too, in humbler ways Went forth to fight the fight anew, And heeding neither blame nor praise, We held the course he set us true.

And we, too, find the fighting sweet; And we, too, fight for fighting's sake; And though we go down in defeat, And though our stormy hearts may break, We will not do our Master shame: We'll play the game, please G.o.d, We'll play the game.

Little Moccasins

Come out, O Little Moccasins, and frolic on the snow!

Come out, O tiny beaded feet, and twinkle in the light!

I'll play the old Red River reel, you used to love it so: Awake, O Little Moccasins, and dance for me to-night!

Your hair was all a gleamy gold, your eyes a corn-flower blue; Your cheeks were pink as tinted sh.e.l.ls, you stepped light as a fawn; Your mouth was like a coral bud, with seed pearls peeping through; As gladdening as Spring you were, as radiant as dawn.

Come out, O Little Moccasins! I'll play so soft and low, The songs you loved, the old heart-songs that in my mem'ry ring; O child, I want to hear you now beside the campfire glow!

With all your heart a-throbbing in the simple words you sing.

For there was only you and I, and you were all to me; And round us were the barren lands, but little did we fear; Of all G.o.d's happy, happy folks the happiest were we. . . .

(Oh, call her, poor old fiddle mine, and maybe she will hear!)

Your mother was a half-breed Cree, but you were white all through; And I, your father was -- but well, that's neither here nor there; I only know, my little Queen, that all my world was you, And now that world can end to-night, and I will never care.

For there's a tiny wooden cross that p.r.i.c.ks up through the snow: (Poor Little Moccasins! you're tired, and so you lie at rest.) And there's a grey-haired, weary man beside the campfire glow: (O fiddle mine! the tears to-night are drumming on your breast.)

The Wanderl.u.s.t

The Wanderl.u.s.t has lured me to the seven lonely seas, Has dumped me on the tailing-piles of dearth; The Wanderl.u.s.t has haled me from the morris chairs of ease, Has hurled me to the ends of all the earth.

How bitterly I've cursed it, oh, the Painted Desert knows, The wraithlike heights that hug the pallid plain, The all-but-fluid silence, -- yet the longing grows and grows, And I've got to glut the Wanderl.u.s.t again.

_Soldier, sailor, in what a plight I've been!

Tinker, tailor, oh what a sight I've seen!

And I'm hitting the trail in the morning, boys, And you won't see my heels for dust; For it's "all day" with you When you answer the cue Of the Wan-der-l.u.s.t._

The Wanderl.u.s.t has got me . . . by the belly-aching fire, By the fever and the freezing and the pain; By the darkness that just drowns you, by the wail of home desire, I've tried to break the spell of it -- in vain.

Life might have been a feast for me, now there are only crumbs; In rags and tatters, beggar-wise I sit; Yet there's no rest or peace for me, imperious it drums, The Wanderl.u.s.t, and I must follow it.

_Highway, by-way, many a mile I've done; Rare way, fair way, many a height I've won; But I'm pulling my freight in the morning, boys, And it's over the hills or bust; For there's never a cure When you list to the lure Of the Wan-der-l.u.s.t._