The Gold Fields.

Here is a tale the North Wind sang to me:
    Hell hath set Mammon o'er a frozen land,
    Crowned him with gold, put gold into his hand,
And men forsake their God to bow the knee
Again unto this world-old deity
    Whose rule is wheresoe'er man's feet go forth,
    Whether they track the grim and icy North,
Or Afric's scorching sweeps of sandy sea.
About his throne they crawl and curse and weep;
    The tenfold pangs of darkness and of cold
Bite at their hearts, and hound them as they creep,
    Thief-like, to catch his scattered crumbs of gold;--
And over all still burns God's warning scroll:
"What profit it if ye shall lose your soul?"

Charles Hamilton Musgrove

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Charles Hamilton Musgrove

The Voice Of The North.

Charles Hamilton Musgrove, Simple Poetry

The Woman Answers.

Charles Hamilton Musgrove, Simple Poetry

Zoroaster.

Charles Hamilton Musgrove, Simple Poetry

Atonement.

Charles Hamilton Musgrove, Simple Poetry

English

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A Legend Of Gold.

Lucifer craved one boon of God
    After his fall, as his own to hold;
So He gave him a mite in heaven's sight,
    But lo! the gift that He gave was--Gold.

And Lucifer wrought with the rugged ore
    Till he fashioned it wondrous fair, and then
He set a price on the precious store,
    And the price was the blood and tears of men.

Blood and tears! and the price was paid;
    Blood was nothing, and tears were free;
And Lucifer smiled at the fools and said:
    "Surely your souls should belong to me!"

So he offered the earth with its golden heart,
    And the seas with their fleets from pole to pole;
And they looked with lust on the world-wide mart,
    And said in their hearts,--"It is worth the soul!"

And kings were they, and they rule...

Charles Hamilton Musgrove

The Voice Of The North.

You have builded your ships in the sun-lands,
    And launched them with song and wine;
They are boweled with your stanchest engines,
    And masted with bravest pine;
You have met in your closet councils,
    With your plans and your prayers to God
For a fortunate wind to waft you
    Where never a foot has trod.

And now you follow the polar star
    To the seat of the old Norse Kings,
Past the death-white halls of Valhalla,
    Where the Norn to the tempest sings--
Follow the steady needle
    That cleaves to its steady star
To the uttermost realms of Odin
    And the warlike thunderer, Thor.

Far through the icy silence,
    Where the glacier's teeth hang white,
And even the sun-god Baldur,
    Looks down in vague affright,
Yo...

Charles Hamilton Musgrove

The Prospector

I strolled up old Bonanza, where I staked in ninety-eight,
A-purpose to revisit the old claim.
I kept thinking mighty sadly of the funny ways of Fate,
And the lads who once were with me in the game.
Poor boys, they're down-and-outers, and there's scarcely one to-day
Can show a dozen colors in his poke;
And me, I'm still prospecting, old and battered, gaunt and gray,
And I'm looking for a grub-stake, and I'm broke.

I strolled up old Bonanza. The same old moon looked down;
The same old landmarks seemed to yearn to me;
But the cabins all were silent, and the flat, once like a town,
Was mighty still and lonesome-like to see.
There were piles and piles of tailings where we toiled with pick and pan,
And turning round a bend I heard a roar,
And there a giant gold-ship of...

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Riches.

What mines the morning heavens unfold!
What far Alaskas of the skies!
That, veined with elemental gold,
Sierra on Sierra rise.

Heap up the gold of all the world,
The ore that makes men fools and slaves;
What is it to the gold, cloud-curled,
That rivers through the sunset's caves!

Search Earth for riches all who will,
The gold that soils, that turns to dust
Be mine the wealth no thief can steal,
The gold of God that can not rust.

Madison Julius Cawein

A Song For The Hills.

Here is the freedom men die for,--die for but never know;
Here is the peace they pray for shrined in eternal snow;
Down on the plain the city moans with a human cry,
But here there is naught but silence,--peace, and the wide, wide sky.

Here are the dawn's first footfalls, and the twilight's last farewell,
The benediction of starlight, and the moon's sweet canticle;
Here is one spot as God made it, far from the plainsman's range,
Or the march of the cycling seasons with their everlasting change.

Down on the plain the city moans with a human cry,
And the man-gnomes delve and burrow for gold till they drop and die;
But here there is naught for conquest and the spoiler stands at bay,
For God still keeps one playground where He and His whirlwinds play.

Charles Hamilton Musgrove

The North Wind.

I.

Wind of the North, I know your song
    Out on the frozen plain,
But here in the city's streets you seem
    Only a cry of pain.


II.

I know the note of your lusty throat
    Where the black boughs toss and roar,
But here it is part of the old, old cry
    Of the hungry, homeless poor.


III.

I know the song that you sing to God,
    Joyous and high and wild,
But here where His creatures herd and die,
    'Tis the sob of a little child.

Charles Hamilton Musgrove