The Prospector

Where the ragged, snow-capped saw tooth  Cuts the azure of the

And watches o'er the lonely land  As ages wander by;

Where the sentinel pines in grandeur  Murmur to the glacier

As it, ice-gorged, gluts the canyon,  Never brightened by the

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

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

The draught she has prepared for you  And win or lose and laugh?

Can you see the fruits of hardships  Centered on one desperate

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

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

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.