Selections from Ballads of a Cheechako

<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003"></SPAN></p> <h2> Men of the High North </h2> <p>Men of the High North, the wild sky is blazing;<br/> Islands of opal float on silver seas;<br/> Swift splendors kindle, barbaric, amazing;<br/> Pale ports of amber, golden argosies.<br/> Ringed all around us the proud peaks are glowing;<br/> Fierce chiefs in council, their wigwam the sky;<br/> Far, far below us the big Yukon flowing,<br/> Like threaded quicksilver, gleams to the eye.<br/> <br/> Men of the High North, you who have known it;<br/> You in whose hearts its splendors have abode;<br/> Can you renounce it, can you disown it?<br/> Can you forget it, its glory and its goad?<br/> Where is the hardship, where is the pain of it?<br/> Lost in the limbo of things you've forgot;<br/> Only remain the guerdon and gain of it;<br/> Zest of the foray, and God, how you fought!<br/> <br/> You who have made good, you foreign faring;<br/> You money magic to far lands has whirled;<br/> Can you forget those days of vast daring,<br/> There with your soul on the Top o' the World?<br/> Nights when no peril could keep you awake on<br/> Spruce boughs you spread for your couch in the snow;<br/> Taste all your feasts like the beans and the bacon<br/> Fried at the camp-fire at forty below?<br/> <br/> Can you remember your huskies all going,<br/> Barking with joy and their brushes in air;<br/> You in your parka, glad-eyed and glowing,<br/> Monarch, your subjects the wolf and the bear?<br/> Monarch, your kingdom unravisht and gleaming;<br/> Mountains your throne, and a river your car;<br/> Crash of a bull moose to rouse you from dreaming;<br/> Forest your couch, and your candle a star.<br/> <br/> You who this faint day the High North is luring<br/> Unto her vastness, taintlessly sweet;<br/> You who are steel-braced, straight-lipped, enduring,<br/> Dreadless in danger and dire in defeat:<br/> Honor the High North ever and ever,<br/> Whether she crown you, or whether she slay;<br/> Suffer her fury, cherish and love her&mdash;<br/> He who would rule he must learn to obey.<br/> <br/> Men of the High North, fierce mountains love you;<br/> Proud rivers leap when you ride on their breast.<br/> See, the austere sky, pensive above you,<br/> Dons all her jewels to smile on your rest.<br/> Children of Freedom, scornful of frontiers,<br/> We who are weaklings honor your worth.<br/> Lords of the wilderness, Princes of Pioneers,<br/> Let's have a rouse that will ring round the earth.<br/></p> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />