Ballads of a Cheechako

Part 1

Produced by A. Light

BALLADS OF A CHEECHAKO

by Robert W. Service

BALLADS OF A CHEECHAKO

by Robert W. Service

Author of "The Spell of the Yukon"

CONTENTS:

To the Man of the High North My rhymes are rough, and often in my rhyming

Men of the High North Men of the High North, the wild sky is blazing;

The Ballad of the Northern Lights One of the Down and Out--that's me. Stare at me well, ay, stare!

The Ballad of the Black Fox Skin There was Claw-fingered Kitty and Windy Ike living the life of shame,

The Ballad of Pious Pete I tried to refine that neighbor of mine, honest to God, I did.

The Ballad of Blasphemous Bill I took a contract to bury the body of blasphemous Bill MacKie,

The Ballad of One-Eyed Mike This is the tale that was told to me by the man with the crystal eye,

The Ballad of the Brand 'Twas up in a land long famed for gold, where women were far and rare,

The Ballad of Hard-Luck Henry Now wouldn't you expect to find a man an awful crank

The Man from Eldorado He's the man from Eldorado, and he's just arrived in town,

My Friends The man above was a murderer, the man below was a thief;

The Prospector I strolled up old Bonanza, where I staked in ninety-eight,

The Black Sheep Hark to the ewe that bore him:

The Telegraph Operator I will not wash my face;

The Wood-Cutter The sky is like an envelope,

The Song of the Mouth-Organ I'm a homely little bit of tin and bone;

The Trail of Ninety-Eight Gold! We leapt from our benches. Gold! We sprang from our stools.

The Ballad of Gum-Boot Ben He was an old prospector with a vision bleared and dim.

Clancy of the Mounted Police In the little Crimson Manual it's written plain and clear

Lost "Black is the sky, but the land is white--

L'Envoi We talked of yesteryears, of trails and treasure,

Part 2

To the Man of the High North

My rhymes are rough, and often in my rhyming I've drifted, silver-sailed, on seas of dream, Hearing afar the bells of Elfland chiming, Seeing the groves of Arcadie agleam.

I was the thrall of Beauty that rejoices From peak snow-diademed to regal star; Yet to mine aerie ever pierced the voices, The pregnant voices of the Things That Are.

The Here, the Now, the vast Forlorn around us; The gold-delirium, the ferine strife; The lusts that lure us on, the hates that hound us; Our red rags in the patch-work quilt of Life.

The nameless men who nameless rivers travel, And in strange valleys greet strange deaths alone; The grim, intrepid ones who would unravel The mysteries that shroud the Polar Zone.

These will I sing, and if one of you linger Over my pages in the Long, Long Night, And on some lone line lay a calloused finger, Saying: "It's human-true--it hits me right"; Then will I count this loving toil well spent; Then will I dream awhile--content, content.

Men of the High North

Men of the High North, the wild sky is blazing; Islands of opal float on silver seas; Swift splendors kindle, barbaric, amazing; Pale ports of amber, golden argosies. Ringed all around us the proud peaks are glowing; Fierce chiefs in council, their wigwam the sky; Far, far below us the big Yukon flowing, Like threaded quicksilver, gleams to the eye.

Men of the High North, you who have known it; You in whose hearts its splendors have abode; Can you renounce it, can you disown it? Can you forget it, its glory and its goad? Where is the hardship, where is the pain of it? Lost in the limbo of things you've forgot; Only remain the guerdon and gain of it; Zest of the foray, and God, how you fought!

You who have made good, you foreign faring; You money magic to far lands has whirled; Can you forget those days of vast daring, There with your soul on the Top o' the World? Nights when no peril could keep you awake on Spruce boughs you spread for your couch in the snow; Taste all your feasts like the beans and the bacon Fried at the camp-fire at forty below?

Can you remember your huskies all going, Barking with joy and their brushes in air; You in your parka, glad-eyed and glowing, Monarch, your subjects the wolf and the bear? Monarch, your kingdom unravisht and gleaming; Mountains your throne, and a river your car; Crash of a bull moose to rouse you from dreaming; Forest your couch, and your candle a star.

You who this faint day the High North is luring Unto her vastness, taintlessly sweet; You who are steel-braced, straight-lipped, enduring, Dreadless in danger and dire in defeat: Honor the High North ever and ever, Whether she crown you, or whether she slay; Suffer her fury, cherish and love her-- He who would rule he must learn to obey.

Men of the High North, fierce mountains love you; Proud rivers leap when you ride on their breast. See, the austere sky, pensive above you, Dons all her jewels to smile on your rest. Children of Freedom, scornful of frontiers, We who are weaklings honor your worth. Lords of the wilderness, Princes of Pioneers, Let's have a rouse that will ring round the earth.

The Ballad of the Northern Lights

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 bum; A knight of the hollow needle, pard, spewed from the sodden slum. Look me all over from head to foot; how much would you think I was worth? A dollar? a dime? a nickel? Why, I'M THE WEALTHIEST MAN ON EARTH.

No, don't you think that I'm off my base. You'll sing a different tune If only you'll let me spin my yarn. Come over to this saloon; Wet my throat--it's as dry as chalk, and seeing as how it's you, I'll tell the tale of a Northern trail, and so help me God, it's true. I'll tell of the howling wilderness and the haggard Arctic heights, Of a reckless vow that I made, and how I STAKED THE NORTHERN LIGHTS.

Remember the year of the Big Stampede and the trail of Ninety-eight, When the eyes of the world were turned to the North, and the hearts of men elate; Hearts of the old dare-devil breed thrilled at the wondrous strike, And to every man who could hold a pan came the message, "Up and hike". Well, I was there with the best of them, and I knew I would not fail. You wouldn't believe it to see me now; but wait till you've heard my tale.

You've read of the trail of Ninety-eight, but its woe no man may tell; It was all of a piece and a whole yard wide, and the name of the brand was "Hell". We heard the call and we staked our all; we were plungers playing blind, And no man cared how his neighbor fared, and no man looked behind; For a ruthless greed was born of need, and the weakling went to the wall, And a curse might avail where a prayer would fail, and the gold lust crazed us all.

Bold were we, and they called us three the "Unholy Trinity"; There was Ole Olson, the sailor Swede, and the Dago Kid and me. We were the discards of the pack, the foreloopers of Unrest, Reckless spirits of fierce revolt in the ferment of the West. We were bound to win and we revelled in the hardships of the way. We staked our ground and our hopes were crowned, and we hoisted out the pay. We were rich in a day beyond our dreams, it was gold from the grass-roots down; But we weren't used to such sudden wealth, and there was the siren town. We were crude and careless frontiersmen, with much in us of the beast; We could bear the famine worthily, but we lost our heads at the feast.

The town looked mighty bright to us, with a bunch of dust to spend, And nothing was half too good them days, and everyone was our friend. Wining meant more than mining then, and life was a dizzy whirl, Gambling and dropping chunks of gold down the neck of a dance-hall girl; Till we went clean mad, it seems to me, and we squandered our last poke, And we sold our claim, and we found ourselves one bitter morning--broke.

The Dago Kid he dreamed a dream of his mother's aunt who died-- In the dawn-light dim she came to him, and she stood by his bedside, And she said: "Go forth to the highest North till a lonely trail ye find; Follow it far and trust your star, and fortune will be kind." But I jeered at him, and then there came the Sailor Swede to me, And he said: "I dreamed of my sister's son, who croaked at the age of three. From the herded dead he sneaked and said: `Seek you an Arctic trail; 'Tis pale and grim by the Polar rim, but seek and ye shall not fail.'" And lo! that night I too did dream of my mother's sister's son, And he said to me: "By the Arctic Sea there's a treasure to be won. Follow and follow a lone moose trail, till you come to a valley grim, On the slope of the lonely watershed that borders the Polar brim." Then I woke my pals, and soft we swore by the mystic Silver Flail, 'Twas the hand of Fate, and to-morrow straight we would seek the lone moose trail.

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