Skip to content
Linespedia

What the Ghost of the Gambler Said

Topics: classic

Where now the huts are empty,          Where never a camp-fire glows,          In an abandoned canyon,          A Gambler's Ghost arose.          He muttered there, "The moon's a sack          Of dust."    His voice rose thin:          "I wish I knew the miner-man.          I'd play, and play to win.          In every game in Cripple-creek          Of old, when stakes were high,          I held my own.    Now I would play          For that sack in the sky.          The sport would not be ended there.          'Twould rather be begun.          I'd bet my moon against his stars,          And gamble for the sun."

AI analysis available. Enable JavaScript to interact.

About this line

"Where now the huts are empty,..."

Vachel Lindsay's contribution to classic is further solidified by the brilliance found in "What the Ghost of the Gambler Said"... ### Why We Love This Line At Linespedia, we believe that poetry is the ultimate sanctuary for the soul...

Classified Tags

Related lines

"A Fantasy, dedicated to the little poet Alice Oliver Henderson, ten years old.      The Fantasy shows how tiger-hearts are the cause of war in"

"I. The Lion          The Lion is a kingly beast.          He likes a Hindu for a feast.          And if no Hindu he can get,"

"I was but a half-grown boy,         You were a girl-child slight.         Ah, how weary you were!         You had led in the bullock-fight"

"Sometimes I dip my pen and find the bottle full of fire,          The salamanders flying forth I cannot but admire.          It's Etna, or"

"Here morning in the ploughman's songs is met     Ere yet one footstep shows in all the sky,     And twilight in the east, a doubt as yet,     S"

"The Text is taken from Percy's Reliques (1765), vol. i. p. 71, 'given from two MS. copies, transmitted from Scotland.' Herd had a very similar bal"

Continue Reading

"A Fantasy, dedicated to the little poet Alice Oliv..."

Weekly Poetic Insight

Join our literary Sanctuary

Get the most inspiring lines, poetic analysis, and secret shayaris delivered to your inbox every Sunday.