Rhymes of a Rolling Stone

The Baldness of Chewed-Ear

When Chewed-ear Jenkins got hitched up to Guinneyveer McGee,

His flowin' locks, ye recollect, wuz frivolous an' free;

But in old Hymen's jack-pot, it's a most amazin' thing,

Them flowin' locks jest disappeared like snow-balls in the Spring;

Jest seemed to wilt an' fade away like dead leaves in the Fall,

An' left old Chewed-ear balder than a white-washed cannon ball.

Now Missis Chewed-ear Jenkins, that wuz Guinneyveer McGee,

Wuz jest about as fine a draw as ever made a pair;

But when the boys got joshin' an' suggested it was she

That must be inflooenshul for the old man's slump in hair --

Why! Missis Chewed-ear Jenkins jest went clean up in the air.

"To demonstrate," sez she that night, "the lovin' wife I am,

I've bought a dozen bottles of Bink's Anty-Dandruff Balm.

'Twill make yer hair jest sprout an' curl like squash-vines in the sun,

An' I'm propose to sling it on till every drop is done."

That hit old Chewed-ear's funny side, so he lays back an' hollers:

"The day you raise a hair, old girl, you'll git a thousand dollars."

Now, whether 'twas the prize or not 'tis mighty hard to say,

But Chewed-ear didn't seem to have much comfort from that day.

With bottles of that dandruff dope she followed at his heels,

An' sprinkled an' massaged him even when he ate his meals.

She waked him from his beauty sleep with tender, lovin' care,

An' rubbed an' scrubbed assiduous, yet never sign of hair.

Well, naturally all the boys soon tumbled to the joke,

An' at the Wow-wow's Social 'twas Cold-deck Davis spoke:

"The little woman's working mighty hard on Chewed-ear's crown;

Let's give her for a three-fifth's share a hundred dollars down.

We stand to make five hundred clear -- boys, drink in whiskey straight:

'The Chewed-ear Jenkins Hirsute Propagation Syndicate'."

The boys wuz on, an' soon chipped in the necessary dust;

They primed up a committy to negotiate the deal;

Then Missis Jenkins yielded, bein' rather in disgust,

An' all wuz signed an' witnessed, an' invested with a seal.

They rounded up old Chewed-ear, an' they broke it what they'd done;

Allowed they'd bought an interest in his chance of raisin' hair;

They yanked his hat off anxiouslike, opinin' one by one

Their magnifyin' glasses showed fine prospects everywhere.

They bought Hairlene, an' Thatchem, an' Jay's Capillery Juice,

An' Seven Something Sisters, an' Macassar an' Bay Rum,

An' everyone insisted on his speshul right to sluice

His speshul line of lotion onto Chewed-ear's cranium.

They only got the merrier the more the old man roared,

An' shares in "Jenkins Hirsute" went sky-highin' on the board.

The Syndicate wuz hopeful that they'd demonstrate the pay,

An' Missis Jenkins laboured in her perseverin' way.

The boys discussed on "surface rights", an' "out-crops" an' so on,

An' planned to have it "crown" surveyed, an' blue prints of it drawn.

They ran a base line, sluiced an' yelled, an' everyone wuz glad,

Except the balance of the property, an' he wuz "mad".

"It gives me pain," he interjects, "to squash yer glowin' dream,

But you wuz fools when you got in on this here 'Hirsute' scheme.

You'll never raise a hair on me," when lo! that very night,

Preparin' to retire he got a most onpleasant fright:

For on that shinin' dome of his, so prominently bare,

He felt the baby outcrop of a second growth of hair.

A thousand dollars! Sufferin' Caesar! Well, it must be saved!

He grabbed his razor recklesslike, an' shaved an' shaved an' shaved.

An' when his head was smooth again he gives a mighty sigh,

An' sneaks away, an' buys some Hair Destroyer on the sly.

So there wuz Missis Jenkins with "Restorer" wagin' fight,

An' Chewed-ear with "Destroyer" circumventin' her at night.

The battle wuz a mighty one; his nerves wuz on the strain,

An' yet in spite of all he did that hair began to gain.

The situation grew intense, so quietly one day,

He gave his share-holders the slip, an' made his get-a-way.

Jest like a criminal he skipped, an' aimed to defalcate

The Chewed-ear Jenkins Hirsute Propagation Syndicate.

His guilty secret burned him, an' he sought the city's din:

"I've got to get a wig," sez he, "to cover up my sin.

It's growin', growin' night an' day; it's most amazin' hair";

An' when he looked at it that night, he shuddered with despair.

He shuddered an' suppressed a cry at what his optics seen --

For on my word of honour, boys, that hair wuz growin' green.

At first he guessed he'd get some dye, an' try to dye it black;

An' then he saw 'twas Nemmysis wuz layin' on his track.

He must jest face the music, an' confess the thing he done,

An' pay the boys an' Guinneyveer the money they had won.

An' then there came a big idee -- it thrilled him like a shock:

Why not control the Syndicate by buyin' up the Stock?

An' so next day he hurried back with smoothly shaven pate,

An' for a hundred dollars he bought up the Syndicate.

'Twas mighty frenzied finance an' the boys set up a roar,

But "Hirsutes" from the market wuz withdrawn for evermore.

An' to this day in Nuggetsville they tell the tale how slick

The Syndicate sold out too soon, and Chewed-ear turned the trick.

The Mother

There will be a singing in your heart,

There will be a rapture in your eyes;

You will be a woman set apart,

You will be so wonderful and wise.

You will sleep, and when from dreams you start,

As of one that wakes in Paradise,

There will be a singing in your heart,

There will be a rapture in your eyes.

There will be a moaning in your heart,

There will be an anguish in your eyes;

You will see your dearest ones depart,

You will hear their quivering good-byes.

Yours will be the heart-ache and the smart,

Tears that scald and lonely sacrifice;

There will be a moaning in your heart,

There will be an anguish in your eyes.

There will come a glory in your eyes,

There will come a peace within your heart;

Sitting 'neath the quiet evening skies,

Time will dry the tear and dull the smart.

You will know that you have played your part;

Yours shall be the love that never dies:

You, with Heaven's peace within your heart,

You, with God's own glory in your eyes.

The Dreamer

The lone man gazed and gazed upon his gold,

His sweat, his blood, the wage of weary days;

But now how sweet, how doubly sweet to hold

All gay and gleamy to the campfire blaze.

The evening sky was sinister and cold;

The willows shivered, wanly lay the snow;

The uncommiserating land, so old,

So worn, so grey, so niggard in its woe,

Peered through its ragged shroud. The lone man sighed,

Poured back the gaudy dust into its poke,

Gazed at the seething river listless-eyed,

Loaded his corn-cob pipe as if to smoke;

Then crushed with weariness and hardship crept

Into his ragged robe, and swiftly slept.

. . . . .

Hour after hour went by; a shadow slipped

From vasts of shadow to the camp-fire flame;

Gripping a rifle with a deadly aim,

A gaunt and hairy man with wolfish eyes . . .

* * * * *

The sleeper dreamed, and lo! this was his dream:

He rode a streaming horse across a moor.

Sudden 'mid pit-black night a lightning gleam

Showed him a way-side inn, forlorn and poor.

A sullen host unbarred the creaking door,

And led him to a dim and dreary room;

Wherein he sat and poked the fire a-roar,

So that weird shadows jigged athwart the gloom.

He ordered wine. 'Od's blood! but he was tired.

What matter! Charles was crushed and George was King;

His party high in power; how he aspired!

Red guineas packed his purse, too tight to ring.

The fire-light gleamed upon his silken hose,

His silver buckles and his powdered wig.

What ho! more wine! He drank, he slowly rose.

What made the shadows dance that madcap jig?

He clutched the candle, steered his way to bed,

And in a trice was sleeping like the dead.

. . . . .

Across the room there crept, so shadow soft,

His sullen host, with naked knife a-gleam,

(A gaunt and hairy man with wolfish eyes.) . . .

And as he lay, the sleeper dreamed a dream.

* * * * *

'Twas in a ruder land, a wilder day.

A rival princeling sat upon his throne,

Within a dungeon, dark and foul he lay,

With chains that bit and festered to the bone.

They haled him harshly to a vaulted room,

Where One gazed on him with malignant eye;

And in that devil-face he read his doom,

Knowing that ere the dawn-light he must die.

Well, he was sorrow-glutted; let them bring

Their prize assassins to the bloody work.

His kingdom lost, yet would he die a King,

Fearless and proud, as when he faced the Turk.

Ah God! the glory of that great Crusade!

The bannered pomp, the gleam, the splendid urge!

The crash of reeking combat, blade to blade!

The reeling ranks, blood-avid and a-surge!

For long he thought; then feeling o'er him creep

Vast weariness, he fell into a sleep.

. . . . .

The cell door opened; soft the headsman came,

Within his hand a mighty axe a-gleam,

(A gaunt and hairy man with wolfish eyes,) . . .

And as he lay, the sleeper dreamed a dream.

* * * * *

'Twas in a land unkempt of life's red dawn;

Where in his sanded cave he dwelt alone;

Sleeping by day, or sometimes worked upon

His flint-head arrows and his knives of stone;

By night stole forth and slew the savage boar,

So that he loomed a hunter of loud fame,

And many a skin of wolf and wild-cat wore,

And counted many a flint-head to his name;

Wherefore he walked the envy of the band,

Hated and feared, but matchless in his skill.

Till lo! one night deep in that shaggy land,

He tracked a yearling bear and made his kill;

Then over-worn he rested by a stream,

And sank into a sleep too deep for dream.

. . . . .

Hunting his food a rival caveman crept

Through those dark woods, and marked him where he lay;

Cowered and crawled upon him as he slept,

Poising a mighty stone aloft to slay --

(A gaunt and hairy man with wolfish eyes.) . . .

* * * * *

The great stone crashed. The Dreamer shrieked and woke,

And saw, fear-blinded, in his dripping cell,

A gaunt and hairy man, who with one stroke

Swung a great ax of steel that flashed and fell . . .

So that he woke amid his bedroom gloom,

And saw, hair-poised, a naked, thirsting knife,

A gaunt and hairy man with eyes of doom --

And then the blade plunged down to drink his life . . .

So that he woke, wrenched back his robe, and looked,

And saw beside his dying fire upstart

A gaunt and hairy man with finger crooked --

A rifle rang, a bullet searched his heart . . .

* * * * *

The morning sky was sinister and cold.

Grotesque the Dreamer sprawled, and did not rise.

For long and long there gazed upon some gold

A gaunt and hairy man with wolfish eyes.

At Thirty-Five

Three score and ten, the psalmist saith,

And half my course is well-nigh run;

I've had my flout at dusty death,

I've had my whack of feast and fun.

I've mocked at those who prate and preach;

I've laughed with any man alive;

But now with sobered heart I reach

The Great Divide of Thirty-five.

And looking back I must confess

I've little cause to feel elate.

I've played the mummer more or less;

I fumbled fortune, flouted fate.

I've vastly dreamed and little done;

I've idly watched my brothers strive:

Oh, I have loitered in the sun

By primrose paths to Thirty-five!

And those who matched me in the race,

Well, some are out and trampled down;

The others jog with sober pace;

Yet one wins delicate renown.

O midnight feast and famished dawn!

O gay, hard life, with hope alive!

O golden youth, forever gone,

How sweet you seem at Thirty-five!

Each of our lives is just a book

As absolute as Holy Writ;

We humbly read, and may not look

Ahead, nor change one word of it.

And here are joys and here are pains;

And here we fail and here we thrive;

O wondrous volume! what remains

When we reach chapter Thirty-five?

The very best, I dare to hope,

Ere Fate writes Finis to the tome;

A wiser head, a wider scope,

And for the gipsy heart, a home;

A songful home, with loved ones near,

With joy, with sunshine all alive:

Watch me grow younger every year --

Old Age! thy name is Thirty-five!

The Squaw Man

The cow-moose comes to water, and the beaver's overbold,

The net is in the eddy of the stream;

The teepee stars the vivid sward with russet, red and gold,

And in the velvet gloom the fire's a-gleam.

The night is ripe with quiet, rich with incense of the pine;

From sanctuary lake I hear the loon;

The peaks are bright against the blue, and drenched with sunset wine,

And like a silver bubble is the moon.

Cloud-high I climbed but yesterday; a hundred miles around

I looked to see a rival fire a-gleam.

As in a crystal lens it lay, a land without a bound,

All lure, and virgin vastitude, and dream.

The great sky soared exultantly, the great earth bared its breast,

All river-veined and patterned with the pine;

The heedless hordes of caribou were streaming to the West,

A land of lustrous mystery -- and mine.

Yea, mine to frame my Odyssey: Oh, little do they know

My conquest and the kingdom that I keep!

The meadows of the musk-ox, where the laughing grasses grow,

The rivers where the careless conies leap.

Beyond the silent Circle, where white men are fierce and few,

I lord it, and I mock at man-made law;

Like a flame upon the water is my little light canoe,

And yonder in the fireglow is my squaw.

A squaw man! yes, that's what I am; sneer at me if you will.

I've gone the grilling pace that cannot last;

With bawdry, bridge and brandy -- Oh, I've drank enough to kill

A dozen such as you, but that is past.

I've swung round to my senses, found the place where I belong;

The City made a madman out of me;

But here beyond the Circle, where there's neither right or wrong,

I leap from life's straight-jacket, and I'm free.

Yet ever in the far forlorn, by trails of lone desire;

Yet ever in the dawn's white leer of hate;

Yet ever by the dripping kill, beside the drowsy fire,

There comes the fierce heart-hunger for a mate.

There comes the mad blood-clamour for a woman's clinging hand,

Love-humid eyes, the velvet of a breast;

And so I sought the Bonnet-plumes, and chose from out the band

The girl I thought the sweetest and the best.

O wistful women I have loved before my dark disgrace!

O women fair and rare in my home land!

Dear ladies, if I saw you now I'd turn away my face,

Then crawl to kiss your foot-prints in the sand!

And yet -- that day the rifle jammed -- a wounded moose at bay --

A roar, a charge . . . I faced it with my knife:

A shot from out the willow-scrub, and there the monster lay. . . .

Yes, little Laughing Eyes, you saved my life.

The man must have the woman, and we're all brutes more or less,

Since first the male ape shinned the family tree;

And yet I think I love her with a husband's tenderness,

And yet I know that she would die for me.

Oh, if I left you, Laughing Eyes, and nevermore came back,

God help you, girl! I know what you would do. . . .

I see the lake wan in the moon, and from the shadow black,

There drifts a little, empty birch canoe.

We're here beyond the Circle, where there's never wrong nor right;

We aren't spliced according to the law;

But by the gods I hail you on this hushed and holy night

As the mother of my children, and my squaw.

I see your little slender face set in the firelight glow;

I pray that I may never make it sad;

I hear you croon a baby song, all slumber-soft and low --

God bless you, little Laughing Eyes! I'm glad.

Home and Love

Just Home and Love! the words are small

Four little letters unto each;

And yet you will not find in all

The wide and gracious range of speech

Two more so tenderly complete:

When angels talk in Heaven above,

I'm sure they have no words more sweet

Than Home and Love.

Just Home and Love! it's hard to guess

Which of the two were best to gain;

Home without Love is bitterness;

Love without Home is often pain.

No! each alone will seldom do;

Somehow they travel hand and glove:

If you win one you must have two,

Both Home and Love.

And if you've both, well then I'm sure

You ought to sing the whole day long;

It doesn't matter if you're poor

With these to make divine your song.

And so I praisefully repeat,

When angels talk in Heaven above,

There are no words more simply sweet

Than Home and Love.

I'm Scared of it All

I'm scared of it all, God's truth! so I am;

It's too big and brutal for me.

My nerve's on the raw and I don't give a damn

For all the "hoorah" that I see.

I'm pinned between subway and overhead train,

Where automobillies swoop down:

Oh, I want to go back to the timber again --

I'm scared of the terrible town.

I want to go back to my lean, ashen plains;

My rivers that flash into foam;

My ultimate valleys where solitude reigns;

My trail from Fort Churchill to Nome.

My forests packed full of mysterious gloom,

My ice-fields agrind and aglare:

The city is deadfalled with danger and doom --

I know that I'm safer up there.

I watch the wan faces that flash in the street;

All kinds and all classes I see.

Yet never a one in the million I meet,

Has the smile of a comrade for me.

Just jaded and panting like dogs in a pack;

Just tensed and intent on the goal:

O God! but I'm lonesome -- I wish I was back,

Up there in the land of the Pole.

I wish I was back on the Hunger Plateaus,

And seeking the lost caribou;

I wish I was up where the Coppermine flows

To the kick of my little canoe.

I'd like to be far on some weariful shore,

In the Land of the Blizzard and Bear;

Oh, I wish I was snug in the Arctic once more,

For I know I am safer up there!

I prowl in the canyons of dismal unrest;

I cringe -- I'm so weak and so small.

I can't get my bearings, I'm crushed and oppressed

With the haste and the waste of it all.

The slaves and the madman, the lust and the sweat,

The fear in the faces I see;

The getting, the spending, the fever, the fret --

It's too bleeding cruel for me.

I feel it's all wrong, but I can't tell you why --

The palace, the hovel next door;

The insolent towers that sprawl to the sky,

The crush and the rush and the roar.

I'm trapped like a fox and I fear for my pelt;

I cower in the crash and the glare;

Oh, I want to be back in the avalanche belt,

For I know that it's safer up there!

I'm scared of it all: Oh, afar I can hear

The voice of my solitudes call!

We're nothing but brute with a little veneer,

And nature is best after all.

There's tumult and terror abroad in the street;

There's menace and doom in the air;

I've got to get back to my thousand-mile beat;

The trail where the cougar and silver-tip meet;

The snows and the camp-fire, with wolves at my feet;

       Good-bye, for it's safer up there.

To be forming good habits up there;

To be starving on rabbits up there;

In your hunger and woe,

Though it's sixty below,

Oh, I know that it's safer up there!

A Song of Success

Ho! we were strong, we were swift, we were brave.

Youth was a challenge, and Life was a fight.

All that was best in us gladly we gave,

Sprang from the rally, and leapt for the height.

Smiling is Love in a foam of Spring flowers:

Harden our hearts to him -- on let us press!

Oh, what a triumph and pride shall be ours!

See where it beacons, the star of success!

Cares seem to crowd on us -- so much to do;

New fields to conquer, and time's on the wing.

Grey hairs are showing, a wrinkle or two;

Somehow our footstep is losing its spring.

Pleasure's forsaken us, Love ceased to smile;

Youth has been funeralled; Age travels fast.

Sometimes we wonder: is it worth while?

There! we have gained to the summit at last.

Aye, we have triumphed! Now must we haste,

Revel in victory . . . why! what is wrong?

Life's choicest vintage is flat to the taste --

Are we too late? Have we laboured too long?

Wealth, power, fame we hold . . . ah! but the truth:

Would we not give this vain glory of ours

For one mad, glad year of glorious youth,

Life in the Springtide, and Love in the flowers.

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