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-the Creator- knows what it’s all 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.
So, 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.
This is
my dream of Whitehorse
When
fifty years have sped,
As after
the Rogers' Banquet
I lay
asleep in my bed.
I
tottered along the sidewalk
That was
made of real cement;
A
skyscraper loomed above me,
Where
once I remembered a tent.
I heard
the roar of a trolley,
And I
stumbled out of the way;
I dodged
a few automobiles,
And I
felt I was getting quite gay.
I thought
I'd cross the Yukon,
Over the
big steel bridge;
I heard
the roar of the stamp mills
Up on the
western ridge.
Crushing
the quartz from bullion,
And borne
on the evening breeze
I sniffed
the fumes of the smelter
And the sulphur
made me sneeze.
So I
thought I'd go to Ear Lake Park
Where
nature was fresh and fair;
('Twas
donated by J.P.Whitney,
The
multi-millionaire.)
Out past
the smiling suburbs,
The
villas with gardens a flower,
The
factories down by the rapids
Run by
the water power.
I took a
car to the Canyon
And
transferred up to the Park
And I sat
on a bench by the fountain
Feeling
as old as the Ark.
I sighed
for the ancient landmarks,
The men
that I used to know,
Till I
stumbled against a statue,
And
spelled out the name - Bob Lowe.
A little
chap who saw me
Said with
evident pride:
"That
is a bust of my grandpa:
It's
twenty years since he died.
And if
you think I'm fooling,
Ask that
boy and you'll see -
He's
little Billy Grainger, my playmate,
And
that's little Barney McGee."
Then I
turned once more to the city,
With its
streets like canyons a roar;
And the
lights of Taylor & Drury's
Colossal
department store:
The
eighteen storey steel palace
Where
once stood the White Pass Hotel,
The
silent rush of its elevators
The clamour
of bell upon bell.
And over
there at the depot
The
hurry, the crush and the din,
The flyer
just starting for Dawson,
The
bullion express coming in.
The
business blocks all a bustle,
The
theatres all alight,
The Home
of Indigent Sourdoughs
Endowed
by Armstrong and White.
And
everywhere were strangers,
And I
thought in the midst of these
Of Old
Bill Clark in his homespun,
And debonair
Mr.Breze:
And Fish,
and Doc and the Deacon,
And the
solo bunch at the club -
Now grown
to a stately mansion
That
would make the old place look dub.
It was
all so real, so lifelike,
I awoke
like a man in a fog,
So I shed
a few tears in the darkness,
And
groped for the hair of the dog.
This was
my dream of Whitehorse
When
fifty years had sped,
What ho! the World’s all right, I say.
As I lay
asleep here in my bed.
