by Robert W. Service

[British-born Canadian Poet — 1874-1958.]

Author of "The Spell of the Yukon", "Ballads of a Cheechako", etc.


1912 edition, 1917 printing

[Some very minor changes have been made in spelling and punctuation after consulting another edition.] </h5 I have no doubt at all the Devil grins, As seas of ink I spatter. Ye gods, forgive my "literary" sins — The other kind don't matter.

CONTENTS

RHYMES OF A ROLLING STONE

A Rolling Stone

The Soldier of Fortune

The Gramaphone at Fond-Du-Lac

The Land of Beyond

Sunshine

The Idealist

Athabaska Dick

Cheer

The Return

The Junior God

The Nostomaniac

Ambition

To Sunnydale

The Blind and the Dead

The Atavist

The Sceptic

The Rover

Barb-Wire Bill

"?"

Just Think!

The Lunger

The Mountain and the Lake

The Headliner and the Breadliner

Death in the Arctic

Dreams Are Best

The Quitter

The Cow-Juice Cure

While the Bannock Bakes

The Lost Master

Little Moccasins

The Wanderlust

The Trapper's Christmas Eve

The World's All Right

The Baldness of Chewed-Ear

The Mother

The Dreamer

At Thirty-Five

The Squaw Man

Home and Love

I'm Scared of it All

A Song of Success

The Song of the Camp-Fire

Her Letter

The Man Who Knew

The Logger

The Passing of the Year

The Ghosts

Good-Bye, Little Cabin

Heart o' the North

The Scribe's Prayer

RHYMES OF A ROLLING STONE

Prelude I sing no idle songs of dalliance days, No dreams Elysian inspire my rhyming; I have no Celia to enchant my lays, No pipes of Pan have set my heart to chiming. I am no wordsmith dripping gems divine Into the golden chalice of a sonnet; If love songs witch you, close this book of mine, Waste no time on it. Yet bring I to my work an eager joy, A lusty love of life and all things human; Still in me leaps the wonder of the boy, A pride in man, a deathless faith in woman. Still red blood calls, still rings the valiant fray; Adventure beacons through the summer gloaming: Oh long and long and long will be the day Ere I come homing! This earth is ours to love: lute, brush and pen, They are but tongues to tell of life sincerely; The thaumaturgic Day, the might of men, O God of Scribes, grant us to grave them clearly! Grant heart that homes in heart, then all is well. Honey is honey-sweet, howe'er the hiving. Each to his work, his wage at evening bell The strength of striving.