The Prospector

Where the ragged, snow-capped saw tooth         Cuts the azure of the sky     And watches o'er the lonely land         As ages wander by;     Where the sentinel pines in grandeur         Murmur to the glacier stream     As it, ice-gorged, gluts the canyon,         Never brightened by the gleam     Of sun at brightest noon day,         Nor moon of Arctic night,     And whose only link with Heaven         Is the fitful Northern Light.     Where the Whistler shrills in triumph         And the Big Horn dreams in peace,     Where the Brown Bear skulks to cover         Up where silence holds the lease;     Where the land is as God left it         Nor has known the tread of man,     There's a treasure ledge a-waiting--         Go and find it if you can.     If your heart be steeled to triumph         Nor beats less at your defeat;     Can you watch your whole world melt away         And still smiling, fortune greet?     Will your heart and brain and sinew         Crowd you on, when hunger's pain     Gnaws your belly and you're beaten,         Can you lose, and fight again?     Can you raise the cup of fortune         To your lips and bravely quaff     The draught she has prepared for you         And win or lose and laugh?     Can you see the fruits of hardships         Centered on one desperate throw     And know Fate's dice are loaded         Nor curse to see them go?     Then take your burden up again         And stagger up the trail,     You're bound to make a winning         Cause you don't know how to fail.     I, who've spent my youth in following         The lure of hidden gold     Must pass the buck to Nature         And admit I'm growing old.     And yet each spring I hear it calling         And it's music to my ears,     The call of lonely places         That I've listened to for years.     It's cost me all most men hold dear         Some forty years of life,     And all the joys that others get         In babies, home, and wife.     My life's been all to-morrows         And my family only dreams     And to the average plodder         I've missed it all it seems.     Still, I've never taken orders         And I've always liked the game,     And if life could be lived over,         Why,--I'd live it just the same.