The Ballad Of The Northern Lights Poem Rhyme Scheme

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One of the Down and Out that's me Stare at me well ay stare	A
Stare and shrink say you wouldn't think that I was a millionaire	A
Look at my face it's crimped and gouged one of them death mask things	B
Don't seem the sort of man do I as might be the pal of kings	B
Slouching along in smelly rags a bleary eyed no good bum	C
A knight of the hollow needle pard spewed from the sodden slum	C
Look me all over from head to foot how much would you think I was worth	D
A dollar a dime a nickel Why I'm the wealthest man on earth	D
	-
No don't you think that I'm off my base You'll sing a different tune	E
If only you'll let me spin my yarn Come over to this saloon	E
Wet my throat it's as dry as chalk and seeing as how it's you	F
I'll tell the tale of a Northern trail and so help me God it's true	F
I'll tell of the howling wilderness and the haggard Arctic heights	G
Of a reckless vow that I made and how I staked the Northern Lights	G
	-
Remember the year of the Big Stampede and the trail of Ninety eight	H
When the eyes of the world were turned to the North and the hearts of men elate	H
Hearts of the old dare devil breed thrilled at the wondrous strike	I
And to every man who could hold a pan came the message Up and hike	I
Well I was there with the best of them and I knew I would not fail	J
You wouldn't believe it to see me now but wait till you've heard my tale	J
	-
You've read of the trail of Ninety eight but its woe no man may tell	K
It was all of a piece and a whole yard wide and the name of the brand was Hell	K
We heard the call and we staked our all we were plungers playing blind	L
And no man cared how his neighbor fared and no man looked behind	L
For a ruthless greed was born of need and the weakling went to the wall	M
And a curse might avail where a prayer would fail and the gold lust crazed us all	M
	-
Bold were we and they called us three the Unholy Trinity	N
There was Ole Olson the Sailor Swede and the Dago Kid and me	N
We were the discards of the pack the foreloopers of Unrest	O
Reckless spirits of fierce revolt in the ferment of the West	O
We were bound to win and we revelled in the hardships of the way	P
We staked our ground and our hopes were crowned and we hoisted out the pay	P
We were rich in a day beyond our dreams it was gold from the grass roots down	Q
But we weren't used to such sudden wealth and there was the siren town	Q
We were crude and careless frontiersmen with much in us of the beast	R
We could bear the famine worthily but we lost our heads at the feast	R
The town looked mighty bright to us with a bunch of dust to spend	S
And nothing was half too good them days and everyone was our friend	S
Wining meant more than mining then and life was a dizzy whirl	T
Gambling and dropping chunks of gold down the neck of a dance hall girl	T
Till we went clean mad it seems to me and we squandered our last poke	U
And we sold our claim and we found ourselves one bitter morning broke	U
	-
The Dago Kid he dreamed a dream of his mother's aunt who died	V
In the dawn light dim she came to him and she stood by his bedside	V
And she said Go forth to the highest North till a lonely trail ye find	L
Follow it far and trust your star and fortune will be kind	L
But I jeered at him and then there came the Sailor Swede to me	N
And he said I dreamed of my sister's son who croaked at the age of three	N
From the herded dead he sneaked and said 'Seek you an Arctic trail	J
'Tis pale and grim by the Polar rim but seek and ye shall not fail '	-
And lo that night I too did dream of my mother's sister's son	W
And he said to me By the Arctic Sea there's a treasure to be won	W
Follow and follow a lone moose trail till you come to a valley grim	X
On the slope of the lonely watershed that borders the Polar brim	X
Then I woke my pals and soft we swore by the mystic Silver Flail	J
'Twas the hand of Fate and to morrow straight we would seek the lone moose trail	J
	-
We watched the groaning ice wrench free crash on with a hollow din	Y
Men of the wilderness were we freed from the taint of sin	Y
The mighty river snatched us up and it bore us swift along	Z
The days were bright and the morning light was sweet with jewelled song	Z
We poled and lined up nameless streams portaged o'er hill and plain	A2
We burnt our boat to save the nails and built our boat again	B2
We guessed and groped North ever North with many a twist and turn	C2
We saw ablaze in the deathless days the splendid sunsets burn	C2
O'er soundless lakes where the grayling makes a rush at the clumsy fly	D2
By bluffs so steep that the hard hit sheep falls sheer from out the sky	D2
By lilied pools where the bull moose cools and wallows in huge content	E2
By rocky lairs where the pig eyed bears peered at our tiny tent	E2
Through the black canyon's angry foam we hurled to dreamy bars	F2
And round in a ring the dog nosed peaks bayed to the mocking stars	F2
Spring and summer and autumn went the sky had a tallow gleam	G2
Yet North and ever North we pressed to the land of our Golden Dream	G2
	-
So we came at last to a tundra vast and dark and grim and lone	H2
And there was the little lone moose trail and we knew it for our own	H2
By muskeg hollow and nigger head it wandered endlessly	N
Sorry of heart and sore of foot weary men were we	N
The short lived sun had a leaden glare and the darkness came too soon	E
And stationed there with a solemn stare was the pinched anaemic moon	E
Silence and silvern solitude till it made you dumbly shrink	I2
And you thought to hear with an outward ear the things you thought to think	I2
	-
Oh it was wild and weird and wan and ever in camp o' nights	G
We would watch and watch the silver dance of the mystic Northern Lights	G
And soft they danced from the Polar sky and swept in primrose haze	J2
And swift they pranced with their silver feet and pierced with a blinding blaze	J2
They danced a cotillion in the sky they were rose and silver shod	K2
It was not good for the eyes of man 'twas a sight for the eyes of God	K2
It made us mad and strange and sad and the gold whereof we dreamed	L2
Was all forgot and our only thought was of the lights that gleamed	L2
	-
Oh the tundra sponge it was golden brown and some was a bright blood red	M2
And the reindeer moss gleamed here and there like the tombstones of the dead	M2
And in and out and around about the little trail ran clear	N2
And we hated it with a deadly hate and we feared with a deadly fear	N2
And the skies of night were alive with light with a throbbing thrilling flame	O2
Amber and rose and violet opal and gold it came	O2
It swept the sky like a giant scythe it quivered back to a wedge	P2
Argently bright it cleft the night with a wavy golden edge	P2
Pennants of silver waved and streamed lazy banners unfurled	Q2
Sudden splendors of sabres gleamed lightning javelins were hurled	Q2
There in our awe we crouched and saw with our wild uplifted eyes	R2
Charge and retire the hosts of fire in the battlefield of the skies	R2
	-
But all things come to an end at last and the muskeg melted away	P
And frowning down to bar our path a muddle of mountains lay	P
And a gorge sheered up in granite walls and the moose trail crept betwixt	S2
'Twas as if the earth had gaped too far and her stony jaws were fixt	S2
Then the winter fell with a sudden swoop and the heavy clouds sagged low	T2
And earth and sky were blotted out in a whirl of driving snow	T2
	-
We were climbing up a glacier in the neck of a mountain pass	U2
When the Dago Kid slipped down and fell into a deep crevasse	U2
When we got him out one leg hung limp and his brow was wreathed with pain	A2
And he says 'Tis badly broken boys and I'll never walk again	B2
It's death for all if ye linger here and that's no cursed lie	D2
Go on go on while the trail is good and leave me down to die	D2
He raved and swore but we tended him with our uncouth clumsy care	A
The camp fire gleamed and he gazed and dreamed with a fixed and curious stare	A
Then all at once he grabbed my gun and he put it to his head	S2
And he says I'll fix it for you boys them are the words he said	S2
	-
So we sewed him up in a canvas sack and we slung him to a tree	N
And the stars like needles stabbed our eyes and woeful men were we	N
And on we went on our woeful way wrapped in a daze of dream	G2
And the Northern Lights in the crystal nights came forth with a mystic gleam	G2
They danced and they danced the devil dance over the naked snow	T2
And soft they rolled like a tide upshoaled with a ceaseless ebb and flow	T2
They rippled green with a wondrous sheen they fluttered out like a fan	V2
They spread with a blaze of rose pink rays never yet seen of man	V2
They writhed like a brood of angry snakes hissing and sulphur pale	J
Then swift they changed to a dragon vast lashing a cloven tail	J
It seemed to us as we gazed aloft with an everlasting stare	A
The sky was a pit of bale and dread and a monster revelled there	A
	-
We climbed the rise of a hog back range that was desolate and drear	A
When the Sailor Swede had a crazy fit and he got to talking queer	A
He talked of his home in Oregon and the peach trees all in bloom	W2
And the fern head high and the topaz sky and the forest's scented gloom	W2
He talked of the sins of his misspent life and then he seemed to brood	S2
And I watched him there like a fox a hare for I knew it was not good	S2
And sure enough in the dim dawn light I missed him from the tent	S2
And a fresh trail broke through the crusted snow and I knew not where it went	S2
But I followed it o'er the seamless waste and I found him at shut of day	S2
Naked there as a new born babe so I left him where he lay	S2
	-
Day after day was sinister and I fought fierce eyed despair	A
And I clung to life and I struggled on I knew not why nor where	A
I packed my grub in short relays and I cowered down in my tent	S2
And the world around was purged of sound like a frozen continent	S2
Day after day was dark as death but ever and ever at nights	U2
With a brilliancy that grew and grew blazed up the Northern Lights	U2
	-
They rolled around with a soundless sound like softly bruised silk	X2
They poured into the bowl of the sky with the gentle flow of milk	X2
In eager pulsing violet their wheeling chariots came	O2
Or they poised above the Polar rim like a coronal of flame	O2
From depths of darkness fathomless their lancing rays were hurled	S2
Like the all combining search lights of the navies of the world	S2
There on the roof pole of the world as one bewitched I gazed	S2
And howled and grovelled like a beast as the awful splendors blazed	S2
My eyes were seared yet thralled I peered through the parka hood nigh blind	S2
But I staggered on to the lights that shone and never I looked behind	S2
	-
There is a mountain round and low that lies by the Polar rim	X
And I climbed its height in a whirl of light and I peered o'er its jagged brim	X
And there in a crater deep and vast ungained unguessed of men	B2
The mystery of the Arctic world was flashed into my ken	B2
For there these poor dim eyes of mine beheld the sight of sights	U2
That hollow ring was the source and spring of the mystic Northern Lights	U2
Then I staked that place from crown to base and I hit the homeward trail	J
Ah God it was good though my eyes were blurred and I crawled like a sickly snail	J
In that vast white world where the silent sky communes with the silent snow	T2
In hunger and cold and misery I wandered to and fro	T2
But the Lord took pity on my pain and He led me to the sea	N
And some ice bound whalers heard my moan and they fed and sheltered me	N
They fed the feeble scarecrow thing that stumbled out of the wild	S2
With the ravaged face of a mask of death and the wandering wits of a child	S2
A craven cowering bag of bones that once had been a man	V2
They tended me and they brought me back to the world and here I am	Y2
	-
Some say that the Northern Lights are the glare of the Arctic ice and snow	T2
And some that it's electricity and nobody seems to know	T2
But I'll tell you now and if I lie may my lips be stricken dumb	C
It's a mine a mine of the precious stuff that men call radium	C
I'ts a million dollars a pound they say and there's tons and tons in sight	S2
You can see it gleam in a golden stream in the solitudes of night	S2
And it's mine all mine and say if you have a hundred plunks to spare	A
I'll let you have the chance of your life I'll sell you a quarter share	A
You turn it down Well I'll make it ten seeing as you are my friend	S2
Nothing doing Say don't be hard have you got a dollar to lend	S2
Just a dollar to help me out I know you'll treat me white	S2
I'll do as much for you some day God bless you sir good night	S2

Robert Service

The Ballad Of The Northern Lights Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

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