Songs of a Sourdough Part 5

There's a race of men that don't fit in, A race that can't stay still; So they break the hearts of kith and kin, And they roam the world at will.

They range the field and they rove the flood, And they climb the mountain's crest; Theirs is the curse of the gipsy blood, And they don't know how to rest.

If they just went straight they might go far; They are strong and brave and true; But they're always tired of the things that are, And they want the strange and new.

They say: "Could I find my proper groove, What a deep mark I would make!"

So they chop and change, and each fresh move Is only a fresh mistake.

And each forgets, as he strips and runs, With a brilliant, fitful pace, It's the steady, quiet, plodding ones Who win in the lifelong race.

And each forgets that his youth has fled, Forgets that his prime is past, Till he stands one day with a hope that's dead In the glare of the truth at last.

He has failed, he has failed; he has missed his chance; He has just done things by half.

Life's been a jolly good joke on him, And now is the time to laugh.

Ha, ha! He is one of the Legion Lost; He was never meant to win; He's a rolling stone, and it's bred in the bone; He's a man who won't fit in.

MUSIC IN THE BUSH

O'er the dark pines she sees the silver moon, And in the west, all tremulous, a star; And soothing sweet she hears the mellow tune Of cow-bells jangled in the fields afar.

Quite listless, for her daily stent is done, She stands, sad exile, at her rose-wreathed door, And sends her love eternal with the sun That goes to gild the land she'll see no more.

The grave, gaunt pines imprison her sad gaze, All still the sky and darkling drearily; She feels the chilly breath of dear, dead days Come sifting through the alders eerily.

Oh, how the roses riot in their bloom!

The curtains stir as with an ancient pain; Her old piano gleams from out the gloom, And waits and waits her tender touch in vain.

But now her hands like moonlight brush the keys With velvet grace, melodious delight; And now a sad refrain from overseas Goes sobbing on the bosom of the night.

And now she sings. (O singer in the gloom, Voicing a sorrow we can ne'er express, Here in the Farness where we few have room Unshamed to show our love and tenderness,

Our hearts will echo, till they beat no more, That song of sadness and of motherland; And stretched in deathless love to England's sh.o.r.e, Some day she'll hearken and she'll understand.)

A prima-donna in the shining past, But now a mother growing old and grey, She thinks of how she held a people fast In thrall, and gleaned the triumphs of a day.

She sees a sea of faces like a dream; She sees herself a queen of song once more; She sees lips part in rapture, eyes agleam; She sings as never once she sang before.

She sings a wild, sweet song that throbs with pain, The added pain of life that transcends art, A song of home, a deep, celestial strain, The glorious swan-song of a dying heart.

A lame tramp comes along the railway track, A grizzled dog whose day is nearly done: He pa.s.ses, pauses, then comes slowly back And listens there--an audience of one.

She sings--her golden voice is pa.s.sion-fraught As when she charmed a thousand eager ears; He listens trembling, and she knows it not, And down his hollow cheeks roll bitter tears.

She ceases and is still, as if to pray; There is no sound, the stars are all alight-- Only a wretch who stumbles on his way, Only a vagrant sobbing in the night.

THE RHYME OF THE REMITTANCE MAN

There's a four-p.r.o.nged buck a-swinging in the shadow of my cabin, And it roamed the velvet valley till to-day; But I tracked it by the river, and I trailed it in the cover, And I killed it on the mountain miles away.

Now I've had my lazy supper, and the level sun is gleaming On the water where the silver salmon play; And I light my little corn-cob, and I linger softly dreaming, In the twilight, of a land that's far away.

Far away, so faint and far, is flaming London, fevered Paris, That I fancy I have gained another star; Far away the din and hurry, far away the sin and worry, Far away--G.o.d knows they cannot be too far.

Gilded galley-slaves of Mammon--how my purse-proud brothers taunt me!

I might have been as well-to-do as they Had I clutched like them my chances, learned their wisdom, crushed my fancies, Starved my soul and gone to business every day.

Well, the cherry bends with blossom, and the vivid gra.s.s is springing, And the star-like lily nestles in the green; And the frogs their joys are singing, and my heart in tune is ringing, And it doesn't matter what I might have been, While above the scented pine-gloom, piling heights of golden glory, The sun-G.o.d paints his canvas in the west; I can couch me deep in clover, I can listen to the story Of the lazy, lapping water--it is best.

While the trout leaps in the river, and the blue grouse thrills the cover, And the frozen snow betrays the panther's track, And the robin greets the dayspring with the rapture of a lover, I am happy, and I'll nevermore go back.

For I know I'd just be longing for the little old log cabin, With the morning-glory clinging to the door, Till I loathed the city places, cursed the care on all the faces, Turned my back on lazar London evermore.

So send me far from Lombard Street, and write me down a failure; Put a little in my purse and leave me free.

Say: "He turned from Fortune's offering to follow up a pale lure, He is one of us no longer--let him be."

I am one of you no longer: by the trails my feet have broken, The dizzy peaks I've scaled, the camp-fire's glow, By the lonely seas I've sailed in--yea, the final word is spoken, I am signed and sealed to nature. Be it so.

THE LOW-DOWN WHITE

This is the pay-day up at the mines, when the bearded brutes come down; There's money to burn in the streets to-night, so I've sent my klooch to town, With a haggard face and a ribband of red entwined in her hair of brown.

And I know at the dawn she'll come reeling home with the bottles, one, two, three; One for herself to drown her shame, and two big bottles for me, To make me forget the thing I am and the man I used to be.

To make me forget the brand of the dog, as I crouch in this hideous place; To make me forget once I kindled the light of love in a lady's face, Where even the squalid Siwash now holds me a black disgrace.

Oh, I have guarded my secret well! And who would dream as I speak In a tribal tongue like a rogue unhung, 'mid the ranch-house filth and reek, I could roll to bed with a Latin phrase, and rise with a verse of Greek?

Yet I was a senior prizeman once, and the pride of a college eight; Called to the bar--my friends were true! but they could not keep me straight; Then came the divorce, and I went abroad and "died" on the River Plate.

But I'm not dead yet; though with half a lung there isn't time to spare, And I hope that the year will see me out, and, thank G.o.d, no one will care-- Save maybe the little slim Siwash girl with the rose of shame in her hair.

She will come with the dawn, and the dawn is near; I can see its evil glow, Like a corpse-light seen through a frosty pane in a night of want and woe; And yonder she comes, by the bleak bull-pines, swift staggering through the snow.

THE LITTLE OLD LOG CABIN

When a man gits on his uppers in a hard-pan sort of town, An' he ain't got nothin' comin', an' he can't afford ter eat, An' he's in a fix fer lodgin', an' he wanders up an' down, An' you'd fancy he'd been boozin', he's so locoed 'bout the feet; When he's feelin' sneakin' sorry, an' his belt is hangin' slack, An' his face is peaked an' grey-like, an' his heart gits down an'

whines, Then he's apt ter git a-thinkin' an' a-wishin' he was back In the little ol' log cabin in the shadder of the pines.

When he's on the blazin' desert, an' his canteen's sprung a leak, An' he's all alone an' crazy, an' he's crawlin' like a snail, An' his tongue's so black an' swollen that it hurts him fer to speak, An' he gouges down fer water, an' the raven's on his trail; When he's done with care and cursin', an' he feels more like to cry, An' he sees ol' Death a-grinnin', an' he thinks upon his crimes, Then he's like ter hev' a vision, as he settles down ter die, Of the little ol' log cabin an' the roses an' the vines.