The Prospector

Where the ragged, snow-capped saw tooth
    Cuts the azure of the sky
And watches o'er the lonely land
    As ages wander by;
Where the sentinel pines in grandeur
    Murmur to the glacier stream
As it, ice-gorged, gluts the canyon,
    Never brightened by the gleam
Of sun at brightest noon day,
    Nor moon of Arctic night,
And whose only link with Heaven
    Is the fitful Northern Light.
Where the Whistler shrills in triumph
    And the Big Horn dreams in peace,
Where the Brown Bear skulks to cover
    Up where silence holds the lease;
Where the land is as God left it
    Nor has known the tread of man,
There's a treasure ledge a-waiting--
    Go and find it if you can.

If your heart be steeled to triumph
    Nor beats less at your defeat;
Can you watch your whole world melt away
    And still smiling, fortune greet?
Will your heart and brain and sinew
    Crowd you on, when hunger's pain
Gnaws your belly and you're beaten,
    Can you lose, and fight again?
Can you raise the cup of fortune
    To your lips and bravely quaff
The draught she has prepared for you
    And win or lose and laugh?
Can you see the fruits of hardships
    Centered on one desperate throw
And know Fate's dice are loaded
    Nor curse to see them go?
Then take your burden up again
    And stagger up the trail,
You're bound to make a winning
    Cause you don't know how to fail.

I, who've spent my youth in following
    The lure of hidden gold
Must pass the buck to Nature
    And admit I'm growing old.
And yet each spring I hear it calling
    And it's music to my ears,
The call of lonely places
    That I've listened to for years.
It's cost me all most men hold dear
    Some forty years of life,
And all the joys that others get
    In babies, home, and wife.
My life's been all to-morrows
    And my family only dreams
And to the average plodder
    I've missed it all it seems.
Still, I've never taken orders
    And I've always liked the game,
And if life could be lived over,
    Why,--I'd live it just the same.