The Spell of the Yukon and Other Verses

The Land God Forgot

     The lonely sunsets flare forlorn
      Down valleys dreadly desolate;
     The lordly mountains soar in scorn
      As still as death, as stern as fate.

          The lonely sunsets flame and die;
           The giant valleys gulp the night;
          The monster mountains scrape the sky,
           Where eager stars are diamond-bright.

     So gaunt against the gibbous moon,
      Piercing the silence velvet-piled,
     A lone wolf howls his ancient rune —
      The fell arch-spirit of the Wild.

          O outcast land!  O leper land!
           Let the lone wolf-cry all express
          The hate insensate of thy hand,
           Thy heart's abysmal loneliness.

Contents with First Lines:


   The Land God Forgot
    The lonely sunsets flare forlorn,

   The Spell of the Yukon
    I wanted the gold, and I sought it,

   The Heart of the Sourdough
    There where the mighty mountains bare their fangs unto the moon,

   The Three Voices
    The waves have a story to tell me,

   The Law of the Yukon
    This is the law of the Yukon, and ever she makes it plain,

   The Parson's Son
    This is the song of the parson's son, as he squats in his shack alone,

   The Call of the Wild
    Have you gazed on naked grandeur where there's nothing else to gaze on,

   The Lone Trail
    Ye who know the Lone Trail fain would follow it,

   The Pines
    We sleep in the sleep of ages, the bleak, barbarian pines,

   The Lure of Little Voices
    There's a cry from out the loneliness — oh, listen, Honey, listen!

   The Song of the Wage-Slave
    When the long, long day is over, and the Big Boss gives me my pay,

   Grin
    If you're up against a bruiser and you're getting knocked about,

   The Shooting of Dan McGrew
    A bunch of the boys were whooping it up in the Malamute saloon,

   The Cremation of Sam McGee
    There are strange things done in the midnight sun,

   My Madonna
    I haled me a woman from the street,

   Unforgotten
    I know a garden where the lilies gleam,

   The Reckoning
    It's fine to have a blow-out in a fancy restaurant,

   Quatrains
    One said:  Thy life is thine to make or mar,

   The Men That Don't Fit In
    There's a race of men that don't fit in,

   Music in the Bush
    O'er the dark pines she sees the silver moon,

   The Rhyme of the Remittance Man
    There's a four-pronged buck a-swinging in the shadow of my cabin,

   The Low-Down White
    This is the pay-day up at the mines, when the bearded brutes come down,

   The Little Old Log Cabin
    When a man gets on his uppers in a hard-pan sort of town,

   The Younger Son
    If you leave the gloom of London and you seek a glowing land,

   The March of the Dead
    The cruel war was over — oh, the triumph was so sweet,

   "Fighting Mac"
    A pistol shot rings round and round the world,

   The Woman and the Angel
    An angel was tired of heaven, as he lounged in the golden street,

   The Rhyme of the Restless Ones
    We couldn't sit and study for the law,

   New Year's Eve
    It's cruel cold on the water-front, silent and dark and drear,

   Comfort
    Say!  You've struck a heap of trouble,

   The Harpy
    There was a woman, and she was wise; woefully wise was she,

   Premonition
    'Twas a year ago, and the moon was bright,

   The Tramps
    Can you recall, dear comrade, when we tramped God's land together,

   L'Envoi
    You who have lived in the land,