Ballads of a Cheechako

The Wood-Cutter

The sky is like an envelope,

One of those blue official things;

And, sealing it, to mock our hope,

The moon, a silver wafer, clings.

What shall we find when death gives leave

To read -- our sentence or reprieve?

I'm holding it down on God's scrap-pile, up on the fag-end of earth;

O'er me a menace of mountains, a river that grits at my feet;

Face to face with my soul-self, weighing my life at its worth;

Wondering what I was made for, here in my last retreat.

Last! Ah, yes, it's the finish. Have ever you heard a man cry?

(Sobs that rake him and rend him, right from the base of the chest.)

That's how I've cried, oh, so often; and now that my tears are dry,

I sit in the desolate quiet and wait for the infinite Rest.

Rest! Well, it's restful around me; it's quiet clean to the core.

The mountains pose in their ermine, in golden the hills are clad;

The big, blue, silt-freighted Yukon seethes by my cabin door,

And I think it's only the river that keeps me from going mad.

By day it's a ruthless monster, a callous, insatiate thing,

With oily bubble and eddy, with sudden swirling of breast;

By night it's a writhing Titan, sullenly murmuring,

Ever and ever goaded, and ever crying for rest.

It cries for its human tribute, but me it will never drown.

I've learned the lore of my river; my river obeys me well.

I hew and I launch my cordwood, and raft it to Dawson town,

Where wood means wine and women, and, incidentally, hell.

Hell and the anguish thereafter. Here as I sit alone

I'd give the life I have left me to lighten some load of care:

(The bitterest part of the bitter is being denied to atone;

Lips that have mocked at Heaven lend themselves ill to prayer.)

Impotent as a beetle pierced on the needle of Fate;

A wretch in a cosmic death-cell, peaks for my prison bars;

'Whelmed by a world stupendous, lonely and listless I wait,

Drowned in a sea of silence, strewn with confetti of stars.

See! from far up the valley a rapier pierces the night,

The white search-ray of a steamer. Swiftly, serenely it nears;

A proud, white, alien presence, a glittering galley of light,

Confident-poised, triumphant, freighted with hopes and fears.

I look as one looks on a vision; I see it pulsating by;

I glimpse joy-radiant faces; I hear the thresh of the wheel.

Hoof-like my heart beats a moment; then silence swoops from the sky.

Darkness is piled upon darkness. God only knows how I feel.

Maybe you've seen me sometimes; maybe you've pitied me then --

The lonely waif of the wood-camp, here by my cabin door.

Some day you'll look and see not; futile and outcast of men,

I shall be far from your pity, resting forevermore.

My life was a problem in ciphers, a weary and profitless sum.

Slipshod and stupid I worked it, dazed by negation and doubt.

Ciphers the total confronts me. Oh, Death, with thy moistened thumb,

Stoop like a petulant schoolboy, wipe me forever out!

The Song of the Mouth-Organ

(With apologies to the singer of the "Song of the Banjo".)

I'm a homely little bit of tin and bone;

I'm beloved by the Legion of the Lost;

I haven't got a "vox humana" tone,

And a dime or two will satisfy my cost.

I don't attempt your high-falutin' flights;

I am more or less uncertain on the key;

But I tell you, boys, there's lots and lots of nights

When you've taken mighty comfort out of me.

I weigh an ounce or two, and I'm so small

You can pack me in the pocket of your vest;

And when at night so wearily you crawl

Into your bunk and stretch your limbs to rest,

You take me out and play me soft and low,

The simple songs that trouble your heartstrings;

The tunes you used to fancy long ago,

Before you made a rotten mess of things.

Then a dreamy look will come into your eyes,

And you break off in the middle of a note;

And then, with just the dreariest of sighs,

You drop me in the pocket of your coat.

But somehow I have bucked you up a bit;

And, as you turn around and face the wall,

You don't feel quite so spineless and unfit --

You're not so bad a fellow after all.

Do you recollect the bitter Arctic night;

Your camp beside the canyon on the trail;

Your tent a tiny square of orange light;

The moon above consumptive-like and pale;

Your supper cooked, your little stove aglow;

You tired, but snug and happy as a child?

Then 'twas "Turkey in the Straw" till your lips were nearly raw,

And you hurled your bold defiance at the Wild.

Do you recollect the flashing, lashing pain;

The gulf of humid blackness overhead;

The lightning making rapiers of the rain;

The cattle-horns like candles of the dead

You sitting on your bronco there alone,

In your slicker, saddle-sore and sick with cold?

Do you think the silent herd did not hear "The Mocking Bird",

Or relish "Silver Threads among the Gold"?

Do you recollect the wild Magellan coast;

The head-winds and the icy, roaring seas;

The nights you thought that everything was lost;

The days you toiled in water to your knees;

The frozen ratlines shrieking in the gale;

The hissing steeps and gulfs of livid foam:

When you cheered your messmates nine with "Ben Bolt" and "Clementine",

And "Dixie Land" and "Seeing Nellie Home"?

Let the jammy banjo voice the Younger Son,

Who waits for his remittance to arrive;

I represent the grimy, gritty one,

Who sweats his bones to keep himself alive;

Who's up against the real thing from his birth;

Whose heritage is hard and bitter toil;

I voice the weary, smeary ones of earth,

The helots of the sea and of the soil.

I'm the Steinway of strange mischief and mischance;

I'm the Stradivarius of blank defeat;

In the down-world, when the devil leads the dance,

I am simply and symbolically meet;

I'm the irrepressive spirit of mankind;

I'm the small boy playing knuckle down with Death;

At the end of all things known, where God's rubbish-heap is thrown,

I shrill impudent triumph at a breath.

I'm a humble little bit of tin and horn;

I'm a byword, I'm a plaything, I'm a jest;

The virtuoso looks on me with scorn;

But there's times when I am better than the best.

Ask the stoker and the sailor of the sea;

Ask the mucker and the hewer of the pine;

Ask the herder of the plain, ask the gleaner of the grain --

There's a lowly, loving kingdom -- and it's mine.

---

The Trail of Ninety-Eight

I.

Gold! We leapt from our benches. Gold! We sprang from our stools.

Gold! We wheeled in the furrow, fired with the faith of fools.

Fearless, unfound, unfitted, far from the night and the cold,

Heard we the clarion summons, followed the master-lure -- Gold!

Men from the sands of the Sunland; men from the woods of the West;

Men from the farms and the cities, into the Northland we pressed.

Graybeards and striplings and women, good men and bad men and bold,

Leaving our homes and our loved ones, crying exultantly -- "Gold!"

Never was seen such an army, pitiful, futile, unfit;

Never was seen such a spirit, manifold courage and grit.

Never has been such a cohort under one banner unrolled

As surged to the ragged-edged Arctic, urged by the arch-tempter -- Gold.

"Farewell!" we cried to our dearests; little we cared for their tears.

"Farewell!" we cried to the humdrum and the yoke of the hireling years;

Just like a pack of school-boys, and the big crowd cheered us good-bye.

Never were hearts so uplifted, never were hopes so high.

The spectral shores flitted past us, and every whirl of the screw

Hurled us nearer to fortune, and ever we planned what we'd do --

Do with the gold when we got it -- big, shiny nuggets like plums,

There in the sand of the river, gouging it out with our thumbs.

And one man wanted a castle, another a racing stud;

A third would cruise in a palace yacht like a red-necked prince of blood.

And so we dreamed and we vaunted, millionaires to a man,

Leaping to wealth in our visions long ere the trail began.

II.

We landed in wind-swept Skagway. We joined the weltering mass,

Clamoring over their outfits, waiting to climb the Pass.

We tightened our girths and our pack-straps; we linked on the Human Chain,

Struggling up to the summit, where every step was a pain.

Gone was the joy of our faces, grim and haggard and pale;

The heedless mirth of the shipboard was changed to the care of the trail.

We flung ourselves in the struggle, packing our grub in relays,

Step by step to the summit in the bale of the winter days.

Floundering deep in the sump-holes, stumbling out again;

Crying with cold and weakness, crazy with fear and pain.

Then from the depths of our travail, ere our spirits were broke,

Grim, tenacious and savage, the lust of the trail awoke.

"Klondike or bust!" rang the slogan; every man for his own.

Oh, how we flogged the horses, staggering skin and bone!

Oh, how we cursed their weakness, anguish they could not tell,

Breaking their hearts in our passion, lashing them on till they fell!

For grub meant gold to our thinking, and all that could walk must pack;

The sheep for the shambles stumbled, each with a load on its back;

And even the swine were burdened, and grunted and squealed and rolled,

And men went mad in the moment, huskily clamoring "Gold!"

Oh, we were brutes and devils, goaded by lust and fear!

Our eyes were strained to the summit; the weaklings dropped to the rear,

Falling in heaps by the trail-side, heart-broken, limp and wan;

But the gaps closed up in an instant, and heedless the chain went on.

Never will I forget it, there on the mountain face,

Antlike, men with their burdens, clinging in icy space;

Dogged, determined and dauntless, cruel and callous and cold,

Cursing, blaspheming, reviling, and ever that battle-cry -- "Gold!"

Thus toiled we, the army of fortune, in hunger and hope and despair,

Till glacier, mountain and forest vanished, and, radiantly fair,

There at our feet lay Lake Bennett, and down to its welcome we ran:

The trail of the land was over, the trail of the water began.

III.

We built our boats and we launched them. Never has been such a fleet;

A packing-case for a bottom, a mackinaw for a sheet.

Shapeless, grotesque, lopsided, flimsy, makeshift and crude,

Each man after his fashion builded as best he could.

Each man worked like a demon, as prow to rudder we raced;

The winds of the Wild cried "Hurry!" the voice of the waters, "Haste!"

We hated those driving before us; we dreaded those pressing behind;

We cursed the slow current that bore us; we prayed to the God of the wind.

Spring! and the hillsides flourished, vivid in jewelled green;

Spring! and our hearts' blood nourished envy and hatred and spleen.

Little cared we for the Spring-birth; much cared we to get on --

Stake in the Great White Channel, stake ere the best be gone.

The greed of the gold possessed us; pity and love were forgot;

Covetous visions obsessed us; brother with brother fought.

Partner with partner wrangled, each one claiming his due;

Wrangled and halved their outfits, sawing their boats in two.

Thuswise we voyaged Lake Bennett, Tagish, then Windy Arm,

Sinister, savage and baleful, boding us hate and harm.

Many a scow was shattered there on that iron shore;

Many a heart was broken straining at sweep and oar.

We roused Lake Marsh with a chorus, we drifted many a mile;

There was the canyon before us -- cave-like its dark defile;

The shores swept faster and faster; the river narrowed to wrath;

Waters that hissed disaster reared upright in our path.

Beneath us the green tumult churning, above us the cavernous gloom;

Around us, swift twisting and turning, the black, sullen walls of a tomb.

We spun like a chip in a mill-race; our hearts hammered under the test;

Then -- oh, the relief on each chill face! -- we soared into sunlight and rest.

Hand sought for hand on the instant. Cried we, "Our troubles are o'er!"

Then, like a rumble of thunder, heard we a canorous roar.

Leaping and boiling and seething, saw we a cauldron afume;

There was the rage of the rapids, there was the menace of doom.

The river springs like a racer, sweeps through a gash in the rock;

Buts at the boulder-ribbed bottom, staggers and rears at the shock;

Leaps like a terrified monster, writhes in its fury and pain;

Then with the crash of a demon springs to the onset again.

Dared we that ravening terror; heard we its din in our ears;

Called on the Gods of our fathers, juggled forlorn with our fears;

Sank to our waists in its fury, tossed to the sky like a fleece;

Then, when our dread was the greatest, crashed into safety and peace.

But what of the others that followed, losing their boats by the score?

Well could we see them and hear them, strung down that desolate shore.

What of the poor souls that perished? Little of them shall be said --

On to the Golden Valley, pause not to bury the dead.

Then there were days of drifting, breezes soft as a sigh;

Night trailed her robe of jewels over the floor of the sky.

The moonlit stream was a python, silver, sinuous, vast,

That writhed on a shroud of velvet -- well, it was done at last.

There were the tents of Dawson, there the scar of the slide;

Swiftly we poled o'er the shallows, swiftly leapt o'er the side.

Fires fringed the mouth of Bonanza; sunset gilded the dome;

The test of the trail was over -- thank God, thank God, we were Home!

---

The Ballad of Gum-Boot Ben

He was an old prospector with a vision bleared and dim.

He asked me for a grubstake, and the same I gave to him.

He hinted of a hidden trove, and when I made so bold

To question his veracity, this is the tale he told.

"I do not seek the copper streak, nor yet the yellow dust;

I am not fain for sake of gain to irk the frozen crust;

Let fellows gross find gilded dross, far other is my mark;

Oh, gentle youth, this is the truth -- I go to seek the Ark.

"I prospected the Pelly bed, I prospected the White;

The Nordenscold for love of gold I piked from morn till night;

Afar and near for many a year I led the wild stampede,

Until I guessed that all my quest was vanity and greed.

"Then came I to a land I knew no man had ever seen,

A haggard land, forlornly spanned by mountains lank and lean;

The nitchies said 'twas full of dread, of smoke and fiery breath,

And no man dare put foot in there for fear of pain and death.

"But I was made all unafraid, so, careless and alone,

Day after day I made my way into that land unknown;

Night after night by camp-fire light I crouched in lonely thought;

Oh, gentle youth, this is the truth -- I knew not what I sought.

"I rose at dawn; I wandered on. 'Tis somewhat fine and grand

To be alone and hold your own in God's vast awesome land;

Come woe or weal, 'tis fine to feel a hundred miles between

The trails you dare and pathways where the feet of men have been.

"And so it fell on me a spell of wander-lust was cast.

The land was still and strange and chill, and cavernous and vast;

And sad and dead, and dull as lead, the valleys sought the snows;

And far and wide on every side the ashen peaks arose.

"The moon was like a silent spike that pierced the sky right through;

The small stars popped and winked and hopped in vastitudes of blue;

And unto me for company came creatures of the shade,

And formed in rings and whispered things that made me half afraid.

"And strange though be, 'twas borne on me that land had lived of old,

And men had crept and slain and slept where now they toiled for gold;

Through jungles dim the mammoth grim had sought the oozy fen,

And on his track, all bent of back, had crawled the hairy men.

"And furthermore, strange deeds of yore in this dead place were done.

They haunted me, as wild and free I roamed from sun to sun;

Until I came where sudden flame uplit a terraced height,

A regnant peak that seemed to seek the coronal of night.

"I scaled the peak; my heart was weak, yet on and on I pressed.

Skyward I strained until I gained its dazzling silver crest;

And there I found, with all around a world supine and stark,

Swept clean of snow, a flat plateau, and on it lay -- the Ark.

"Yes, there, I knew, by two and two the beasts did disembark,

And so in haste I ran and traced in letters on the Ark

My human name -- Ben Smith's the same. And now I want to float

A syndicate to haul and freight to town that noble boat."

I met him later in a bar and made a gay remark

Anent an ancient miner and an option on the Ark.

He gazed at me reproachfully, as only topers can;

But what he said I can't repeat -- he was a bad old man.

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