The Law Of The Yukon Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABBCCDDCCAE FFGGEEDDDDHH IJHHKKGGLLMMKKDDNN GGIIDDDDMMOOFFMMMM DDFFPPMMMM NNAA| This is the law of the Yukon and ever she makes it plain | A |
| Send not your foolish and feeble send me your strong and your sane | A |
| Strong for the red rage of battle sane for I harry them sore | B |
| Send me men girt for the combat men who are grit to the core | B |
| Swift as the panther in triumph fierce as the bear in defeat | C |
| Sired of a bulldog parent steeled in the furnace heat | C |
| Send me the best of your breeding lend me your chosen ones | D |
| Them will I take to my bosom them will I call my sons | D |
| Them will I gild with my treasure them will I glut with my meat | C |
| But the others the misfits the failures I trample under my feet | C |
| Dissolute damned and despairful crippled and palsied and slain | A |
| Ye would send me the spawn of your gutters Go take back your spawn again | E |
| - | |
| Wild and wide are my borders stern as death is my sway | F |
| From my ruthless throne I have ruled alone for a million years and a day | F |
| Hugging my mighty treasure waiting for man to come | G |
| Till he swept like a turbid torrent and after him swept the scum | G |
| The pallid pimp of the dead line the enervate of the pen | E |
| One by one I weeded them out for all that I sought was Men | E |
| One by one I dismayed them frighting them sore with my glooms | D |
| One by one I betrayed them unto my manifold dooms | D |
| Drowned them like rats in my rivers starved them like curs on my plains | D |
| Rotted the flesh that was left them poisoned the blood in their veins | D |
| Burst with my winter upon them searing forever their sight | H |
| Lashed them with fungus white faces whimpering wild in the night | H |
| - | |
| Staggering blind through the storm whirl stumbling mad through the snow | I |
| Frozen stiff in the ice pack brittle and bent like a bow | J |
| Featureless formless forsaken scented by wolves in their flight | H |
| Left for the wind to make music through ribs that are glittering white | H |
| Gnawing the black crust of failure searching the pit of despair | K |
| Crooking the toe in the trigger trying to patter a prayer | K |
| Going outside with an escort raving with lips all afoam | G |
| Writing a cheque for a million driveling feebly of home | G |
| Lost like a louse in the burning or else in the tented town | L |
| Seeking a drunkard's solace sinking and sinking down | L |
| Steeped in the slime at the bottom dead to a decent world | M |
| Lost 'mid the human flotsam far on the frontier hurled | M |
| In the camp at the bend of the river with its dozen saloons aglare | K |
| Its gambling dens ariot its gramophones all ablare | K |
| Crimped with the crimes of a city sin ridden and bridled with lies | D |
| In the hush of my mountained vastness in the flush of my midnight skies | D |
| Plague spots yet tools of my purpose so natheless I suffer them thrive | N |
| Crushing my Weak in their clutches that only my Strong may survive | N |
| - | |
| But the others the men of my mettle the men who would 'stablish my fame | G |
| Unto its ultimate issue winning me honor not shame | G |
| Searching my uttermost valleys fighting each step as they go | I |
| Shooting the wrath of my rapids scaling my ramparts of snow | I |
| Ripping the guts of my mountains looting the beds of my creeks | D |
| Them will I take to my bosom and speak as a mother speaks | D |
| I am the land that listens I am the land that broods | D |
| Steeped in eternal beauty crystalline waters and woods | D |
| Long have I waited lonely shunned as a thing accurst | M |
| Monstrous moody pathetic the last of the lands and the first | M |
| Visioning camp fires at twilight sad with a longing forlorn | O |
| Feeling my womb o'er pregnant with the seed of cities unborn | O |
| Wild and wide are my borders stern as death is my sway | F |
| And I wait for the men who will win me and I will not be won in a day | F |
| And I will not be won by weaklings subtle suave and mild | M |
| But by men with the hearts of vikings and the simple faith of a child | M |
| Desperate strong and resistless unthrottled by fear or defeat | M |
| Them will I gild with my treasure them will I glut with my meat | M |
| - | |
| Lofty I stand from each sister land patient and wearily wise | D |
| With the weight of a world of sadness in my quiet passionless eyes | D |
| Dreaming alone of a people dreaming alone of a day | F |
| When men shall not rape my riches and curse me and go away | F |
| Making a bawd of my bounty fouling the hand that gave | P |
| Till I rise in my wrath and I sweep on their path and I stamp them into a grave | P |
| Dreaming of men who will bless me of women esteeming me good | M |
| Of children born in my borders of radiant motherhood | M |
| Of cities leaping to stature of fame like a flag unfurled | M |
| As I pour the tide of my riches in the eager lap of the world | M |
| - | |
| This is the Law of the Yukon that only the Strong shall thrive | N |
| That surely the Weak shall perish and only the Fit survive | N |
| Dissolute damned and despairful crippled and palsied and slain | A |
| This is the Will of the Yukon Lo how she makes it plain | A |
Robert Service
(1)
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