The Younger Son by Robert William Service (1874-1958), the Ayrshire Poet

The Younger Son

If you leave the gloom of London and you seek a glowing land,
Where all except the flag is strange and new,
There's a bronzed and stalwart fellow who will grip you by the hand,
And greet you with a welcome warm and true;
For he's your younger brother, the one you sent away
Because there wasn't room for him at home;
And now he's quite contented, and he's glad he didn't stay,
And he's building Britain's greatness o'er the foam.

When the giant herd is moving at the rising of the sun,
And the prairie is lit with rose and gold,
And the camp is all abustle, and the busy day's begun,
He leaps into the saddle sure and bold.
Through the round of heat and hurry, through the racket and the rout,
He rattles at a pace that nothing mars;
And when the night-winds whisper and camp-fires flicker out,
He is sleeping like a child beneath the stars.

When the wattle-blooms are drooping in the sombre she-oak glade,
And the breathless land is lying in a swoon,
He leaves his work a moment, leaning lightly on his spade,
And he hears the bell-bird chime the Austral noon.
The parakeets are silent in the gum-tree by the creek;
The ferny grove is sunshine-steeped and still;
But the dew will gem the myrtle in the twilight ere he seek
His little lonely cabin on the hill.

Around the purple, vine-clad slope the argent river dreams;
The roses almost hide the house from view;
A snow-peak of the Winterberg in crimson splendour gleams;
The shadow deepens down on the Karroo.
He seeks the lily-scented dusk beneath the orange tree;
His pipe in silence glows and fades and glows;
And then two little maids come out and climb upon his knee,
And one is like the lily, one the rose.

He sees his white sheep dapple o'er the green New Zealand plain,
And where Vancouver's shaggy ramparts frown,
When the sunlight threads the pine-gloom he is fighting might and main
To clinch the rivets of an Empire down.
You will find him toiling, toiling, in the south or in the west,
A child of nature, fearless, frank, and free;
And the warmest heart that beats for you is beating in his breast,
And he sends you loyal greeting o'er the sea.

You've a brother in the army, you've another in the Church;
One of you is a diplomatic swell;
You've had the pick of everything and left him in the lurch,
And yet I think he's doing very well.
I'm sure his life is happy, and he doesn't envy yours;
I know he loves the land his pluck has won;
And I fancy in the years unborn, while England's fame endures,
She will come to bless with pride -- The Younger Son.

The Logger by Robert William Service (1874-1958)

The Logger

In the moonless, misty night, with my little pipe alight,

     I am sitting by the camp-fire’s fading cheer;

Oh, the dew is falling chill on the dim, deer-haunted hill,

     And the breakers in the bay are moaning drear.

The toilful hours are sped, the boys are long abed,

     And I alone a weary vigil keep;

In the sightless, sullen sky I can hear the night-hawk cry,

     And the frogs in frenzied chorus from the creek.

And somehow the embers’ glow brings me back the long ago,

     The days of merry laughter and light song;

When I sped the hours away with the gayest of the gay

     In the giddy whirl of fashion’s festal throng.

Oh, I ran a grilling race and I little recked the pace,

     For the lust of youth ran riot in my blood;

But at last I made a stand in this God-forsaken land

     Of the pine-tree and the mountain and the flood.

And now I’ve got to stay, with an overdraft to pay,

     For pleasure in the past with future pain;

And I’m not the chap to whine, for if the chance were mine

     I know I’d choose the old life once again.

With its woman’s eyes a-shine, and its flood of golden wine;

     Its fever and its frolic and its fun;

The old life with its din, its laughter and its sin—

     And chuck me in the gutter when it’s done.

Ah, well! it’s past and gone, and the memory is wan,

     That conjures up each old familiar face;

And here by fortune hurled, I am dead to all the world,

     And I’ve learned to lose my pride and keep my place.

My ways are hard and rough, and my arms are strong and tough,

     And I hew the dizzy pine till darkness falls;

And sometimes I take a dive, just to keep my heart alive,

     Among the gay saloons and dancing halls.

In the distant, dinful town just a little drink to drown

     The cares that crowd and canker in my brain;

Just a little joy to still set my pulses all a-thrill,

     Then back to brutish labour once again.

And things will go on so until one day I shall know

     That Death has got me cinched beyond a doubt;

Then I’ll crawl away from sight, and morosely in the night

     My weary, wasted life will peter out.

Then the boys will gather round, and they’ll launch me in the ground,

     And pile the stones the timber wolf to foil;

And the moaning pine will wave overhead a nameless grave,

     Where the black snake in the sunshine loves to coil.

And they’ll leave me there alone, and perhaps with softened tone

     Speak of me sometimes in the camp-fire’s glow,

As a played-out, broken chum, who has gone to Kingdom Come,

     And who went the pace in England long ago.

--Robert William Service

While the Bannock Bakes by Robert W Service (1874-1958)

"Land Of The Midnight Sun", "Rory Borealis Land" = Canada.

Monday, September 20, 2010 03:58 PM

 
Prince George, B.C.- Starting tonight, the world-wide web will have a new window on the Universe when the AuroraMAX online observatory begins streaming Canada's Northern Lights live over the Internet.

As indicated by the title of this poem, ORIGINALLY BAKED BY SCOTTISH PEASANTS, BANNOCK WAS, AND IS, a COMMUNAL LOAFof quick bread.  Although the main ingredient was usually barley flour; there no one correct recipe, except that bannock is always leavened, and bannock is always baked as a loaf, NEVER scones, or biscuits; nor is it EVER fry-bread.

While the Bannock Bakes

Light up your pipe again, old chum, and sit awhile with me;

I've got to watch the bannock bake -- how restful is the air!

You'd little think that we were somewhere north of Sixty-three,

Though where I don't exactly know, and don't precisely care.

The man-size mountains palisade us round on every side;

The river is a-flop with fish, and ripples silver-clear;

The midnight sunshine brims yon cleft -- we think it's the Divide;

We'll get there in a month, maybe, or maybe in a year.

It doesn't matter, does it, pal? We're of that breed of men

With whom the world of wine and cards and women disagree;

Your trouble was a roofless game of poker now and then,

And "raising up my elbow", that's what got away with me.

We're merely "Undesirables", artistic more or less;

My horny hands are Chopin-wise; you quote your Browning well;

And yet we're fooling round for gold in this damned wilderness:

The joke is, if we found it, we would both go straight to hell.

Well, maybe we won't find it -- and at least we've got the "life".

We're both as brown as berries, and could wrestle with a bear:

(That bannock's raising nicely, pal; just jab it with your knife.)

Fine specimens of manhood they would reckon us out there.

It's the tracking and the packing and the poling in the sun;

It's the sleeping in the open, it's the rugged, unfaked food;

It's the snow-shoe and the paddle, and the campfire and the gun,

And when I think of what I was, I know that it is good.

Just think of how we've poled all day up this strange little stream;

Since life began no eye of man has seen this place before;

How fearless all the wild things are! the banks with goose-grass gleam,

And there's a bronzy musk-rat sitting sniffing at his door.

A mother duck with brood of ten comes squattering along;

The tawny, white-winged ptarmigan are flying all about;

And in that swirly, golden pool, a restless, gleaming throng,

The trout are waiting till we condescend to take them out.

Ah, yes, it's good! I'll bet that there's no doctor like the Wild:

(Just turn that bannock over there; it's getting nicely brown.)

I might be in my grave by now, forgotten and reviled,

Or rotting like a sickly cur in some far, foreign town.

I might be that vile thing I was, -- it all seems like a dream;

I owed a man a grudge one time that only life could pay;

And yet it's half-forgotten now -- how petty these things seem!

(But that's "another story", pal; I'll tell it you some day.)

How strange two "irresponsibles" should chum away up here!

But round the Arctic Circle friends are few and far between.

We've shared the same camp-fire and tent for nigh on seven year,

And never had a word that wasn't cheering and serene.

We've halved the toil and split the spoil, and borne each other's packs;

By all the Wild's freemasonry we're brothers, tried and true;

We've swept on danger side by side, and fought it back to back,

And you would die for me, old pal, and I would die for you.

Now there was that time I got lost in Rory Bory Land,

(How quick the blizzards sweep on one across that Polar sea!)

You formed a rescue crew of One, and saw a frozen hand

That stuck out of a drift of snow -- and, partner, it was Me.

But I got even, did I not, that day the paddle broke?

White water on the Coppermine -- a rock -- a split canoe --

Two fellows struggling in the foam (one couldn't swim a stroke):

A half-drowned man I dragged ashore . . . and partner, it was You.

* * * * *

In Rory Borealis Land the winter's long and black.

The silence seems a solid thing, shot through with wolfish woe;

And rowelled by the eager stars the skies vault vastly back,

And man seems but a little mite on that weird-lit plateau.

No thing to do but smoke and yarn of wild and misspent lives,

Beside the camp-fire there we sat -- what tales you told to me

Of love and hate, and chance and fate, and temporary wives!

In Rory Borealis Land, beside the Arctic Sea.

One yarn you told me in those days I can remember still;

It seemed as if I visioned it, so sharp you sketched it in;

Bellona was the name, I think; a coast town in Brazil,

Where nobody did anything but serenade and sin.

I saw it all -- the jewelled sea, the golden scythe of sand,

The stately pillars of the palms, the feathery bamboo,

The red-roofed houses and the swart, sun-dominated land,

The people ever children, and the heavens ever blue.

You told me of that girl of yours, that blossom of old Spain,

All glamour, grace and witchery, all passion, verve and glow.

How maddening she must have been! You made me see her plain,

There by our little camp-fire, in the silence and the snow.

You loved her and she loved you. She'd a husband, too, I think,

A doctor chap, you told me, whom she treated like a dog,

A white man living on the beach, a hopeless slave to drink --

(Just turn that bannock over there, that's propped against the log.)

That story seemed to strike me, pal -- it happens every day:

You had to go away awhile, then somehow it befell

The doctor chap discovered, gave her up, and disappeared;

You came back, tired of her in time . . . there's nothing more to tell.

Hist! see those willows silvering where swamp and river meet!

Just reach me up my rifle quick; that's Mister Moose, I know --

There now, I've got him dead to rights . . . but hell! we've lots to eat

I don't believe in taking life -- we'll let the beggar go.

Heigh ho! I'm tired; the bannock's cooked; it's time we both turned in.

The morning mist is coral-kissed, the morning sky is gold.

The camp-fire's a confessional -- what funny yarns we spin!

It sort of made me think a bit, that story that you told.

The fig-leaf belt and Rory Bory are such odd extremes,

Yet after all how very small this old world seems to be . . .

Yes, that was quite a yarn, old pal, and yet to me it seems

You missed the point: the point is that the "doctor chap" . . . was ME. . . 

My Mate by Robert W Service (1874-1958)

My Mate

I've been sittin' starin', starin' at 'is muddy pair of boots,

And tryin' to convince meself it's 'im.

(Look out there, lad!  That sniper—'e's a dysey when 'e shoots;

'E'll be layin' of you out the same as Jim.)

Jim as lies there in the dug-out wiv 'is blanket round 'is 'ead,

To keep 'is brains from mixin' wiv the mud;

And 'is face as white as putty, and 'is overcoat all red,

Like 'e's spilt a bloomin' paint-pot—but it's blood.

And I'm tryin' to remember of a time we wasn't pals.

'Ow often we've played 'ookey, 'im and me;

And sometimes it was music-'alls, and sometimes it was gals,

And even there we 'ad no disagree.

For when 'e copped Mariar Jones, the one I liked the best,

I shook 'is 'and and loaned 'im 'arf a quid;

I saw 'im through the parson's job, I 'elped 'im make 'is nest,

I even stood god-farther to the kid.

So when the war broke out, sez 'e:  "Well, wot abaht it, Joe?"

"Well, wot abaht it, lad?" sez I to 'im.

'Is missis made a awful fuss, but 'e was mad to go,

('E always was 'igh-sperrited was Jim).

Well, none of it's been 'eaven, and the most of it's been 'ell,

But we've shared our baccy, and we've 'alved our bread.

We'd all the luck at Wipers, and we shaved through Noove Chapelle,

And . . . that snipin' barstard gits 'im on the 'ead.

Now wot I wants to know is, why it wasn't me was took?

I've only got meself, 'e stands for three.

I'm plainer than a louse, while 'e was 'andsome as a dook;

'E always was a better man than me.

'E was goin' 'ome next Toosday; 'e was 'appy as a lark,

And 'e'd just received a letter from 'is kid;

And 'e struck a match to show me, as we stood there in the dark,

When . . . that bleedin' bullet got 'im on the lid.

'E was killed so awful sudden that 'e 'adn't time to die.

'E sorto jumped, and came down wiv a thud.

Them corpsy-lookin' star-shells kept a-streamin' in the sky,

And there 'e lay like nothin' in the mud.

And there 'e lay so quiet wiv no mansard to 'is 'ead,

And I'm sick, and blamed if I can understand:

The pots of 'alf and 'alf we've 'ad, and ZIP! like that—'e's dead,

Wiv the letter of 'is nipper in 'is 'and.

There's some as fights for freedom and there's some as fights for fun,

But me, my lad, I fights for bleedin' 'ate.

You can blame the war and blast it, but I 'opes it won't be done

Till I gets the bloomin' blood-price for me mate.

It'll take a bit o' bayonet to level up for Jim;

Then if I'm spared I think I'll 'ave a bid,

Wiv 'er that was Mariar Jones to take the place of 'im,

To sorter be a farther to 'is kid.

The Song of the Camp-fire-Robert Service (1874-1958)

The Song of the Camp-fire

Heed me, feed me, I am hungry, I am red-tongued with desire;

Boughs of balsam, slabs of cedar, gummy fagots of the pine,

Heap them on me, let me hug them to my eager heart of fire,

Roaring, soaring up to heaven as a symbol and a sign.

Bring me knots of sunny maple, silver birch and tamarack;

Leaping, sweeping, I will lap them with my ardent wings of flame;

I will kindle them to glory, I will beat the darkness back;

Streaming, gleaming, I will goad them to my glory and my fame.

Bring me gnarly limbs of live-oak, aid me in my frenzied fight;

Strips of iron-wood, scaly blue-gum, writhing redly in my hold;

With my lunge of lurid lances, with my whips that flail the night,

They will burgeon into beauty, they will foliate in gold.

Let me star the dim sierras, stab with light the inland seas;

Roaming wind and roaring darkness! seek no mercy at my hands;

I will mock the marly heavens, lamp the purple prairies,

I will flaunt my deathless banners down the far, unhouseled lands.

In the vast and vaulted pine-gloom where the pillared forests frown,

By the sullen, bestial rivers running where God only knows,

On the starlit coral beaches when the combers thunder down,

In the death-spell of the barrens, in the shudder of the snows;

In a blazing belt of triumph from the palm-leaf to the pine,

As a symbol of defiance lo! the wilderness I span;

And my beacons burn exultant as an everlasting sign

Of unending domination, of the mastery of Man;

I, the Life, the fierce Uplifter, I that weaned him from the mire;

I, the angel and the devil, I, the tyrant and the slave;

I, the Spirit of the Struggle; I, the mighty God of Fire;

I, the Maker and Destroyer; I, the Giver and the Grave.

Gather round me, boy and grey-beard, frontiersman of every kind.

Few are you, and far and lonely, yet an army forms behind:

By your camp-fires shall they know you, ashes scattered to the wind.

Peer into my heart of solace, break your bannock at my blaze;

Smoking, stretched in lazy shelter, build your castles as you gaze;

Or, it may be, deep in dreaming, think of dim, unhappy days.

Let my warmth and glow caress you, for your trails are grim and hard;

Let my arms of comfort press you, hunger-hewn and battle-scarred:

O my lovers! how I bless you with your lives so madly marred!

For you seek the silent spaces, and their secret lore you glean:

For you win the savage races, and the brutish Wild you wean;

And I gladden desert places, where camp-fire has never been.

From the Pole unto the Tropics is there trail ye have not dared?

And because you hold death lightly, so by death shall you be spared,

(As the sages of the ages in their pages have declared).

On the roaring Arkilinik in a leaky bark canoe;

Up the cloud of Mount McKinley, where the avalanche leaps through;

In the furnace of Death Valley, when the mirage glimmers blue.

Now a smudge of wiry willows on the weary Kuskoquim;

Now a flare of gummy pine-knots where Vancouver's scaur is grim;

Now a gleam of sunny ceiba, when the Cuban beaches dim.

Always, always God's Great Open: lo! I burn with keener light

In the corridors of silence, in the vestibules of night;

'Mid the ferns and grasses gleaming, was there ever gem so bright?

Not for weaklings, not for women, like my brother of the hearth;

Ring your songs of wrath around me, I was made for manful mirth,

In the lusty, gusty greatness, on the bald spots of the earth.

Men, my masters! men, my lovers! ye have fought and ye have bled;

Gather round my ruddy embers, softly glowing is my bed;

By my heart of solace dreaming, rest ye and be comforted!

I am dying, O my masters! by my fitful flame ye sleep;

     My purple plumes of glory droop forlorn.

Grey ashes choke and cloak me, and above the pines there creep

     The stealthy silver moccasins of morn.

There comes a countless army, it's the Legion of the Light;

     It tramps in gleaming triumph round the world;

And before its jewelled lances all the shadows of the night

     Back in to abysmal darknesses are hurled.

Leap to life again, my lovers! ye must toil and never tire;

     The day of daring, doing, brightens clear,

When the bed of spicy cedar and the jovial camp-fire

     Must only be a memory of cheer.

There is hope and golden promise in the vast portentous dawn;

     There is glamour in the glad, effluent sky:

Go and leave me; I will dream of you and love you when you're gone;

          I have served you, O my masters! let me die.

     A little heap of ashes, grey and sodden by the rain,

          Wind-scattered, blurred and blotted by the snow:

Let that be all to tell of me, and glorious again,

          Ye things of greening gladness, leap and glow!

A black scar in the sunshine by the palm-leaf or the pine,

          Blind to the night and dead to all desire;

Yet oh, of life and uplift what a symbol and a sign!

Yet oh, of power and conquest what a destiny is mine!

A little heap of ashes -- Yea! a miracle divine,

          The foot-print of a god, all-radiant Fire.

The World’s All Right by Robert W Service (1874-1958)

The World’s All Right

       Be honest, kindly, simple, true;

      Seek good in all, scorn but pretence;

      Whatever sorrow come to you,

      Believe in Life’s Beneficence!

The World’s all right; serene I sit,

And cease to puzzle over it.

There’s much that’s mighty strange, no doubt;

But Nature knows what she’s about;

And in a million years or so

We’ll know more than to-day we know.

Old Evolution’s under way —

      What ho! the World’s all right, I say.

Could things be other than they are?

All’s in its place, from mote to star.

The thistledown that flits and flies

Could drift no hair-breadth otherwise.

What is, must be; with rhythmic laws

All Nature chimes, Effect and Cause.

The sand-grain and the sun obey —

      What ho! the World’s all right, I say.

Just try to get the Cosmic touch,

The sense that “you” don’t matter much.

A million stars are in the sky;

A million planets plunge and die;

A million million men are sped;

A million million wait ahead.

Each plays his part and has his day —

      What ho! the World’s all right, I say.

Just try to get the Chemic view:

A million million lives made “you”,.

In lives a million you will be

Immortal down Eternity;

Immortal on this earth to range,

With never death, but ever change.

You always were, and will be aye —

      What ho! the World’s all right, I say.

Be glad! And do not blindly grope

For Truth that lies beyond our scope:

A sober plot informeth all

Of Life’s uproarious carnival.

Your day is such a little one,

A gnat that lives from sun to sun;

Yet gnat and you have parts to play —

      What ho! the World’s all right, I say.

And though it’s written from the start,

Just act your best your little part.

Just be as happy as you can,

And serve your kind, and die — a man.

Just live the good that in you lies,

And seek no guerdon of the skies;

Just make your Heaven here, to-day —

      What ho! the World’s all right, I say.

Remember! in Creation’s swing

The Race and not the man’s the thing.

There’s battle, murder, sudden death,

And pestilence, with poisoned breath.

Yet quick forgotten are such woes;

On, on the stream of Being flows.

Truth, Beauty, Love uphold their sway —

      What ho! the World’s all right, I say.

The World’s all right; serene I sit,

And joy that I am part of it;

And put my trust in Nature’s plan,

And try to aid her all I can;

Content to pass, if in my place

I’ve served the uplift of the Race.

Truth! Beauty! Love! O Radiant Day —

      What ho! the World’s all right, I say.

Death in the Arctic--Robert W. Service (1874-1958)

Death in the Arctic

I took the clock down from the shelf;

“At eight,” said I, “I shoot myself.”

It lacked a minute of the hour,

And I waited all a-cower,

A skinful of black, boding pain,

Bits of my life came back again….

“Mother, there’s nothing more to eat—

Why don

T you go out on the street?

Always you sit and cry and cry;

Here at my play I wonder why.

Mother, when you dress up at night,

Red are your cheeks, your eyes are bright;

Twining a ribband in your hair,

Kissing good-bye you go down-stair,

Then I’m lonely as can be.

Oh, how I wish you were with me!

Yet when you go out on the street,

Mother, there’s always lots to eat….”

For days the igloo has been dark;

But now the rag wick sends a spark

That glitters in the icy air,

And wakes frost sapphires everywhere;

Bright, bitter flames, that adder-like

Dart here and there, yet fear to strike

The gruesome gloom wherin they lie,

My comrades, oh so keen to die!

And I, the last—well, here I wait

The clock to strike the hour of eight….

“Boy, it is bitter to be hurled

Nameless and naked on the world;

Frozen by night and starved by day,

Curses and kicks and clouts your pay.

But you must fight! Boy, look on me!

Anarch of all earth-misery;

Beggar and tramp and shameless sot;

Emblem of ill, in rags that rot.

Would you be foul and base as I?

Oh, it is better far to die!

Swear to me now you’ll fight and fight,

Boy, or I’ll kill you here to-night….”

Curse this silence soft and black!

Sting, little light, the shadows back!

Dance, little flame, with freakish glee!

Twinkle with brilliant mockery!

Glitter on ice-robed roof and floor!

Jewel the bear-skin of the door!

Gleam in my beard, illume my breath,

Blanch the clock face that times my death!

But do not pierce that murk so deep,

Where in their sleeping-bags they sleep!

But do not linger where they lie,

They who had all the luck to die!....

“There is nothing more to say;

Let us part and go our way.

Since it seems we can’t agree,

I will go across the sea.

Proud of heart and strong am I;

Not for woman will I sigh;

Hold my head up gay and glad:

You can find another lad….”

Above the igloo piteous flies

Our frayed flag to the frozen skies.

Oh, would you know how earth can be

A hell—go north of Eighty-three!

Go, scan the snows day after day,

And hope for help, and pray and pray;

Have sea-hide and sea-lice to eat;

Melt water with your body’s heat;

Sleep all the fell, black winter through

Beside the dear, dead men you knew.

(The walrus blubber flares and gleams—

O God! How long a minute seems!)….

“Mary, many a day has passed,

Since that morn of hot-headed youth.

Come I back at last, at last

Crushed with knowing of the truth;

How through bitter, barren years

You loved me, and me alone;

Waited, wearied, wept your tears—

Oh, could I atone, atone,

I would pay a million-fold!

 Pay you for the love you gave.

Mary, look down as of old—

I am kneeling by your gave.”…

Olaf, the Blonde, was first to go;

Bitten his eyes were by the snow;

 Sightless and sealed his eyes of blue,

So that he died before I knew.

Here in those poor weak arms he died:

“Wolves will not get you, lad,” I lied;

“For I will watch till spring come round;

Slumber you shall beneath the ground.”

Oh, how I lied! I scarce can wait:

Strike, little clock, the hour of eight….

“Comrade, can you blame me quite?

The horror of the long, long night

Is on me, and I’ve borne with pain

So long, and hoped for help in vain.

So frail am I, and blind and dazed;

With scurvy sick, with silence crazed

Beneath the Arctic’s heel of hate,

Avid for death I wait, I wait.

Oh if I falter, fail to fight,

Can you, dear comrade, blame me quite?”….

Big Eric gave up months ago.

But seldom do men suffer so.

His feet sloughed off, his fingers died,

His hands shrunk up and mummified.

I had to feed him like a child;

Yet he was valiant, joked and smiled,

Talked of his wife and little one

(Thanks be to God that I have none),

Passed in the night without a moan,

Passed, and I’m here, alone, alone….

“I’ve got to kill you, Dick.

Your life for mine, you know.

Better to do it quick,

A swift and sudden blow.

See! Here’s my hand to lick;

A hug before you go—

God! But it makes me sick:

Old dog, I love you so.

Forgive, forgive me, Dick—

A swift and sudden blow….”

Often I start up in the dark,

Thinking the sound of bells to hear.

Often I wake from sleep: “Oh hark!

Help…it is coming…near and near.”

Blindly I reel toward the door;

There the snow billows bleak and bare;

Blindly I seek my den once more,

Silence and darkness and despair.

Oh, it is all a dreadful dream!

Scurvy and cold and death and dearth;

I will awake to warmth and gleam,

Silver seas and greening earth.

Life is a dream, its wakening,

Death, gentle shadow of God’s wing….

“Tick, little clock, my life away!

Even a second seems a day.

Even a minute seems a year,

People with ghosts, that press and peer

Into my face so charnel white,

Lit by the devilish, dancing light.

Tick, little clock! Mete out my fate:

Tortured and tense I wait, I wait….”

Oh, I have sworn! The hour is nigh:

When it strikes eight, I die, I die.

Raise up the gun—it stings my brow—

When it strikes eight…already…now—

Down from my hand the weapon dropped;

Wildly I  stared….

THE CLOCK HAD STOPPED.

Phantoms and fears and ghosts have gone.

Peace seems to nestle in my brain.

Lo! The clock stopped, I’m living on;

Heart-sick I was, and less than sane.

Yet do I scorn the thing I planned,

Hearing a voice: “O coward, fight!”

Then the clock stopped…Whose was the hand?

Maybe ‘twas God’s—ah well, all’s right.

Heap on me darkness, fold on fold!

Pain! Wrench and rack me! What care I?

Leap on me, hunger, thirst and cold!

I will await my time to die;

Looking to Heaven that whines above;

Looking to God, and love…and love.

Hark! What is that? Bells, and dogs again!

Is it a dream? I sob and cry.

See! The door opens fur-clad men

Rush to my rescue; frail am I;

Feeble and dying, dazed and glad.

There is the pistol where it dropped.

“Boys, it was hard—but I’m not mad….

Look at the clock—it stopped , it stopped.

Carry me out. The heavens smile.

See! There’s an arch of gold above.

Now, let me rest a little while—

Looking to God and Love…and Love….”

--Robert W. Service