This is the tale that was told to me by the man with the crystal eye, As I smoked my pipe in the camp-fire light, and the Glories swept the sky; As the Northlights gleamed and curved and streamed, and the bottle of “hooch” was dry. A man once aimed that my life be shamed, […]

“The North has got him.” –Yukonism. I tried to refine that neighbor of mine, honest to God, I did.I grieved for his fate, and early and late I watched over him like a kid.I gave him excuse, I bore his abuse in every way that I could;I swore to prevail; I camped on his trail;I […]

There was Claw-fingered Kitty and Windy Ike living the life of shame,When unto them in the Long, Long Night came the man-who-had-no-name;Bearing his prize of a black fox pelt, out of the Wild he came. His cheeks were blanched as the flume-head foam when the brown spring freshets flow;Deep in their dark, sin-calcined pits were […]

One of the Down and Out–that’s me. Stare at me well, ay, stare!Stare and shrink–say! you wouldn’t think that I was a millionaire.Look at my face, it’s crimped and gouged–one of them death-mask things;Don’t seem the sort of man, do I, as might be the pal of kings?Slouching along in smelly rags, a bleary-eyed, no-good […]

I will not wash my face;I will not brush my hair;I “pig” around the place–There’s nobody to care.Nothing but rock and tree;Nothing but wood and stone,Oh, God, it’s hell to beAlone, alone, alone! Snow-peaks and deep-gashed drawsCorral me in a ring.I feel as if I wasThe only living thingOn all this blighted earth;And so I […]

(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 […]

I strolled up old Bonanza, where I staked in ninety-eight,A-purpose to revisit the old claim.I kept thinking mighty sadly of the funny ways of Fate,And the lads who once were with me in the game.Poor boys, they’re down-and-outers, and there’s scarcely one to-dayCan show a dozen colors in his poke;And me, I’m still prospecting, old […]

The man above was a murderer, the man below was a thief;And I lay there in the bunk between, ailing beyond belief;A weary armful of skin and bone, wasted with pain and grief. My feet were froze, and the lifeless toes were purple and green and gray;The little flesh that clung to my bones, you […]

I’ve tinkered at my bits of rhymesIn weary, woeful, waiting times;In doleful hours of battle-din,Ere yet they brought the wounded in;Through vigils of the fateful night,In lousy barns by candle-light;In dug-outs, sagging and aflood,On stretchers stiff and bleared with blood;By ragged grove, by ruined road,By hearths accurst where Love abode;By broken altars, blackened shrinesI’ve tinkered […]

He’s the man from Eldorado, and he’s just arrived in town,In moccasins and oily buckskin shirt.He’s gaunt as any Indian, and pretty nigh as brown;He’s greasy, and he smells of sweat and dirt.He sports a crop of whiskers that would shame a healthy hog;Hard work has racked his joints and stooped his back;He slops along […]

We talked of yesteryears, of trails and treasure,Of men who played the game and lost or won;Of mad stampedes, of toil beyond all measure,Of camp-fire comfort when the day was done.We talked of sullen nights by moon-dogs haunted,Of bird and beast and tree, of rod and gun;Of boat and tent, of hunting-trip enchantedBeneath the wonder […]

In the little Crimson Manual it’s written plain and clearThat who would wear the scarlet coat shall say good-bye to fear;Shall be a guardian of the right, a sleuth-hound of the trail–In the little Crimson Manual there’s no such word as “fail”–Shall follow on though heavens fall, or hell’s top-turrets freeze,Half round the world, if […]

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 […]

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 […]

Me and Ed and a stretcherOut on the nootral ground.(If there’s one dead corpse, I’ll betcherThere’s a ‘undred smellin’ around.)Me and Eddie O’Brian,Both of the R. A. M. C.“It’s a ‘ell of a nightFor a soul to take flight,”As Eddie remarks to me.Me and Ed crawlin’ ‘omeward,Thinkin’ our job is done,When sudden and clear,Wot do […]

“Hae ye heard whit ma auld mither’s postit tae me?It fair maks me hamesick,” says Private McPhee.“And whit did she send ye?” says Private McPhun,As he cockit his rifle and bleezed at a Hun.“A haggis! A HAGGIS! ” says Private McPhee;“The brawest big haggis I ever did see.And think! it’s the morn when fond memory […]

From wrath-red dawn to wrath-red dawn,The guns have brayed without abate;And now the sick sun looks uponThe bleared, blood-boltered fields of hateAs if it loathed to rise again.How strange the hush! Yet sudden, hark!From yon down-trodden gold of grain,The leaping rapture of a lark. A fusillade of melody,That sprays us from yon trench of sky;A […]

Tramp, tramp, the grim road, the road from Mons to Wipers (I’ve ‘ammered out this ditty with me bruised and bleedin’ feet); Tramp, tramp, the dim road–we didn’t ‘ave no pipers, And bellies that was ‘oller was the drums we ‘ad to beat. Tramp, tramp, the bad road, the bits o’ kiddies cryin’ there, The […]

Oh the wife she tried to tell me that ’twas nothing but the thrummingOf a wood-pecker a-rapping on the hollow of a tree;And she thought that I was fooling when I said it was the drummingOf the mustering of legions, and ’twas calling unto me;‘Twas calling me to pull my freight and hop across the […]

There’s a drip of honeysuckle in the deep green lane;There’s old Martin jogging homeward on his worn old wain;There are cherry petals falling, and a cuckoo calling, calling,And a score of larks (God bless ’em) . . . but it’s all pain, pain.For you see I am not really there at all, not at all;For […]