Songs of a Sourdough quotes

No! There’s the land. (Have you seen it?) It’s the cussedest land that I know, From the big, dizzy mountains that screen it, To the deep, deathlike valleys below.

Some say God was tired when He made it; Some say it’s a fine land to shun;

Maybe: but there’s some as would trade it For no land on earth—and I’m one.

The winter! the brightness that blinds you, The white land locked tight as a drum, The cold fear that follows and finds you,

The silence that bludgeons you dumb.

The snows that are older than history, The woods where the weird shadows slant; The stillness, the moonlight, the mystery, I’ve bade ’em goodbye—but I can’t.

There’s a land where the mountains are nameless, And the rivers all run God knows where; There are lives that are erring and aimless, And deaths that just hang by a hair; There are hardships that nobody reckons; There are valleys unpeopled and still;

There’s a land⁠—oh, it beckons and beckons, And I want to go back⁠—and I will.

They’re making my money diminish; I’m sick of the taste of champagne. Thank God! when I’m skinned to a finish I’ll pike to the Yukon again. I’ll fight—and you bet it’s no sham-fight; It’s hell!—but I’ve been there before;

Yet it isn’t the gold that I’m wanting, So much as just finding the gold. It’s the great, big, broad land ’way up yonder, It’s the forests where silence has lease; It’s the beauty that thrills me with wonder,

It’s the stillness that fills me with peace.

Have you gazed on naked grandeur where there’s nothing else to gaze on, Set pieces and drop-curtain scenes galore, Big mountains heaved to heaven, which the blinding sunsets blazon, Black canyons where the rapids rip and roar?

There’s gold, and it’s haunting and haunting; It’s luring me on as of old;

Yet it isn’t the gold that I’m wanting, So much as just finding the gold.

It’s the great, big, broad land ’way up yonder, It’s the forests where silence has lease; It’s the beauty that thrills me with wonder, It’s the stillness that fills me with peace.

Have you swept the visioned valley with the green stream streaking through it, Searched the Vastness for a something you have lost?

Have you strung your soul to silence? Then for God’s sake go and do it;

Hear the challenge, learn the lesson, pay the cost.

And sometimes it leads to an Arctic trail, and the snows where your torn feet freeze, And you whittle away the useless clay, and crawl on your hands and knees.

Often it leads to the dead-pit; always it leads to pain;

By the bones of your brothers ye know it, but oh, to follow you’re fain. By your bones they will follow behind you, till the ways of the world are made plain.

Wind of the East, wind of the West, wandering to and fro, Chant your songs in our topmost boughs, that the sons of men may know

The peerless pine was the first to come, and the pine will be last to go!

We pillar the halls of perfumed gloom; we plume where the eagles soar; The North-wind swoops from the brooding Pole, and our ancients crash and roar; But where one falls from the crumbling walls shoots up a hardy score.

Was I not born to walk in scorn where others walk in pride? The Maker marred, and evil-starred I drift upon His tide; And He alone shall judge His own, so I His judgment bide.

Fate has written a tragedy; its name is “The Human Heart.”

The theatre is the House of Life, Woman the mummer’s part: The Devil enters the prompter’s box and the play is ready to start.

Down in the ditch building o’er me palaces fairer than dreams; Boring the rock to the ore-bed, driving the road through the fen, Resolute, dumb, uncomplaining, a man in a world of men. Master, I’ve filled my contract, wrought in Thy many lands;

Not by my sins wilt Thou judge me, but by the work of my hands.

Master, I’ve done Thy bidding, and the light is low in the west, And the long, long shift is over … Master, I’ve earned it—Rest.

And I hope that it won’t be heaven, with some of the parsons I’ve met— All I want is just quiet, just to rest and forget. Look at my face, toil-furrowed; look at my calloused hands;

Master, I’ve done Thy bidding, wrought in Thy many lands⁠—

Wrought for the little masters, big-bellied they be, and rich; I’ve done their desire for a daily hire, and I die like a dog in a ditch. I have used the strength Thou hast given, Thou knowest I did not shirk;

Your trouble is that you don’t know when you have had enough— Don’t give in. If Fate should down you, just get up and take another cuff; You may bank on it that there is no philosophy like bluff And grin.

A bunch of the boys were whooping it up in the Malamute saloon;

The kid that handles the music-box was hitting a jag-time tune; Back of the bar, in a solo game, sat Dangerous Dan McGrew, And watching his luck was his light-o’-love, the lady that’s known as Lou.

They say that the stranger was crazed with “hooch,” and I’m not denying it’s so. I’m not so wise as the lawyer guys, but strictly between us two— The woman that kissed him and—pinched his poke—was the lady that’s known as Lou.

There are strange things done in the midnight sun By the men who moil for gold;

The Arctic trails have their secret tales That would make your blood run cold; The Northern Lights have seen queer sights, But the queerest they ever did see Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge I cremated Sam McGee.

There are strange things done in the midnight sun By the men who moil for gold;

The Arctic trails have their secret tales That would make your blood run cold;

The Northern Lights have seen queer sights, But the queerest they ever did see Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge I cremated Sam McGee.

It was lashed to the sleigh, and it seemed to say: “You may tax your brawn and brains, But you promised true, and it’s up to you to cremate those last remains.”

Now a promise made is a debt unpaid, and the trail has its own stern code.

In the days to come, though my lips were dumb, in my heart how I cursed that load. In the long, long night, by the lone firelight, while the huskies, round in a ring, Howled out their woes to the homeless snows—O God!

To drift along regardless, have a good time every trip; To hit the high spots sometimes, and to let your chances slip; To know you’re acting foolish, yet to go on fooling still, Till Nature calls a showdown, and you Pay the bill.

Time has got a little bill⁠—get wise while yet you may,

For the debit side’s increasing in a most alarming way; The things you had no right to do, the things you should have done, They’re all put down: it’s up to you to pay for every one.

Blind fools of fate, and slaves of circumstance,

Life is a fiddler, and we all must dance.

From gloom where mocks that will-o’-wisp, Freewill, I heard a voice cry: “Say, give us a chance.”

Blind fools of fate, and slaves of circumstance, Life is a fiddler, and we all must dance. From gloom where mocks that will-o’-wisp, Freewill, I heard a voice cry: “Say, give us a chance.”

Chance! Oh, there is no chance. The scene is set.

Up with the curtain! Man, the marionette, Resumes his part. The gods will work the wires. They’ve got it all down fine, you bet, you bet!

Hark to the song where spheral voices blend: “There’s no beginning, never will be end.” It makes us nutty; hang the astral chimes! The table’s spread; come, let us dine, my friend.

There’s a race of men that don’t fit in, A race that can’t stay still;

So they break the hearts of kith and kin, And they roam the world at will. They range the field and they rove the flood, And they climb the mountain’s crest;

While the trout leaps in the river, and the blue grouse thrills the cover, And the frozen snow betrays the panther’s track, And the robin greets the dayspring with the rapture of a lover,

I am happy, and I’ll nevermore go back.

For I know I’d just be longing for the little old log cabin, With the morning-glory clinging to the door, Till I loathed the city places, cursed the care on all the faces, Turned my back on lazar London evermore.

Along the road to Anywhere, when each day had its story; When time was yet our vassal, and life’s jest was still unstale; When peace unfathomed filled our hearts as, bathed in amber glory, Along the road to Anywhere we watched the sunsets pale.

Alas! the road to Anywhere is pitfalled with disaster;

There’s hunger, want, and weariness, yet O we loved it so!