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<h2> The Law of the Yukon </h2>
<p>This is the law of the Yukon, and ever she makes it plain:<br/>
"Send not your foolish and feeble; send me your strong and your sane —<br/>
Strong for the red rage of battle; sane for I harry them sore;<br/>
Send me men girt for the combat, men who are grit to the core;<br/>
Swift as the panther in triumph, fierce as the bear in defeat,<br/>
Sired of a bulldog parent, steeled in the furnace heat.<br/>
Send me the best of your breeding, lend me your chosen ones;<br/>
Them will I take to my bosom, them will I call my sons;<br/>
Them will I gild with my treasure, them will I glut with my meat;<br/>
But the others — the misfits, the failures — I trample under my feet.<br/>
Dissolute, damned and despairful, crippled and palsied and slain,<br/>
Ye would send me the spawn of your gutters — Go! take back your spawn again.<br/>
<br/>
"Wild and wide are my borders, stern as death is my sway;<br/>
From my ruthless throne I have ruled alone for a million years and a day;<br/>
Hugging my mighty treasure, waiting for man to come,<br/>
Till he swept like a turbid torrent, and after him swept — the scum.<br/>
The pallid pimp of the dead-line, the enervate of the pen,<br/>
One by one I weeded them out, for all that I sought was — Men.<br/>
One by one I dismayed them, frighting them sore with my glooms;<br/>
One by one I betrayed them unto my manifold dooms.<br/>
Drowned them like rats in my rivers, starved them like curs on my plains,<br/>
Rotted the flesh that was left them, poisoned the blood in their veins;<br/>
Burst with my winter upon them, searing forever their sight,<br/>
Lashed them with fungus-white faces, whimpering wild in the night;<br/>
<br/>
"Staggering blind through the storm-whirl, stumbling mad through the snow,<br/>
Frozen stiff in the ice-pack, brittle and bent like a bow;<br/>
Featureless, formless, forsaken, scented by wolves in their flight,<br/>
Left for the wind to make music through ribs that are glittering white;<br/>
Gnawing the black crust of failure, searching the pit of despair,<br/>
Crooking the toe in the trigger, trying to patter a prayer;<br/>
Going outside with an escort, raving with lips all afoam,<br/>
Writing a cheque for a million, driveling feebly of home;<br/>
Lost like a louse in the burning... or else in the tented town<br/>
Seeking a drunkard's solace, sinking and sinking down;<br/>
Steeped in the slime at the bottom, dead to a decent world,<br/>
Lost 'mid the human flotsam, far on the frontier hurled;<br/>
In the camp at the bend of the river, with its dozen saloons aglare,<br/>
Its gambling dens ariot, its gramophones all ablare;<br/>
Crimped with the crimes of a city, sin-ridden and bridled with lies,<br/>
In the hush of my mountained vastness, in the flush of my midnight skies.<br/>
Plague-spots, yet tools of my purpose, so natheless I suffer them thrive,<br/>
Crushing my Weak in their clutches, that only my Strong may survive.<br/>
<br/>
"But the others, the men of my mettle, the men who would 'stablish my fame<br/>
Unto its ultimate issue, winning me honor, not shame;<br/>
Searching my uttermost valleys, fighting each step as they go,<br/>
Shooting the wrath of my rapids, scaling my ramparts of snow;<br/>
Ripping the guts of my mountains, looting the beds of my creeks,<br/>
Them will I take to my bosom, and speak as a mother speaks.<br/>
I am the land that listens, I am the land that broods;<br/>
Steeped in eternal beauty, crystalline waters and woods.<br/>
Long have I waited lonely, shunned as a thing accurst,<br/>
Monstrous, moody, pathetic, the last of the lands and the first;<br/>
Visioning camp-fires at twilight, sad with a longing forlorn,<br/>
Feeling my womb o'er-pregnant with the seed of cities unborn.<br/>
Wild and wide are my borders, stern as death is my sway,<br/>
And I wait for the men who will win me — and I will not be won in a day;<br/>
And I will not be won by weaklings, subtle, suave and mild,<br/>
But by men with the hearts of vikings, and the simple faith of a child;<br/>
Desperate, strong and resistless, unthrottled by fear or defeat,<br/>
Them will I gild with my treasure, them will I glut with my meat.<br/>
<br/>
"Lofty I stand from each sister land, patient and wearily wise,<br/>
With the weight of a world of sadness in my quiet, passionless eyes;<br/>
Dreaming alone of a people, dreaming alone of a day,<br/>
When men shall not rape my riches, and curse me and go away;<br/>
Making a bawd of my bounty, fouling the hand that gave —<br/>
Till I rise in my wrath and I sweep on their path<br/>
and I stamp them into a grave.<br/>
Dreaming of men who will bless me, of women esteeming me good,<br/>
Of children born in my borders of radiant motherhood,<br/>
Of cities leaping to stature, of fame like a flag unfurled,<br/>
As I pour the tide of my riches in the eager lap of the world."<br/>
<br/>
This is the Law of the Yukon, that only the Strong shall thrive;<br/>
That surely the Weak shall perish, and only the Fit survive.<br/>
Dissolute, damned and despairful, crippled and palsied and slain,<br/>
This is the Will of the Yukon, — Lo, how she makes it plain!<br/></p>
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