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Best Famous Shunned Poems

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Written by Edna St Vincent Millay | Create an image from this poem

Ode To Silence

 Aye, but she?
Your other sister and my other soul
Grave Silence, lovelier
Than the three loveliest maidens, what of her?
Clio, not you,
Not you, Calliope,
Nor all your wanton line,
Not Beauty's perfect self shall comfort me
For Silence once departed,
For her the cool-tongued, her the tranquil-hearted,
Whom evermore I follow wistfully,
Wandering Heaven and Earth and Hell and the four seasons through;
Thalia, not you,
Not you, Melpomene,
Not your incomparable feet, O thin Terpsichore, I seek in this great hall,
But one more pale, more pensive, most beloved of you all.
I seek her from afar, I come from temples where her altars are, From groves that bear her name, Noisy with stricken victims now and sacrificial flame, And cymbals struck on high and strident faces Obstreperous in her praise They neither love nor know, A goddess of gone days, Departed long ago, Abandoning the invaded shrines and fanes Of her old sanctuary, A deity obscure and legendary, Of whom there now remains, For sages to decipher and priests to garble, Only and for a little while her letters wedged in marble, Which even now, behold, the friendly mumbling rain erases, And the inarticulate snow, Leaving at last of her least signs and traces None whatsoever, nor whither she is vanished from these places.
"She will love well," I said, "If love be of that heart inhabiter, The flowers of the dead; The red anemone that with no sound Moves in the wind, and from another wound That sprang, the heavily-sweet blue hyacinth, That blossoms underground, And sallow poppies, will be dear to her.
And will not Silence know In the black shade of what obsidian steep Stiffens the white narcissus numb with sleep? (Seed which Demeter's daughter bore from home, Uptorn by desperate fingers long ago, Reluctant even as she, Undone Persephone, And even as she set out again to grow In twilight, in perdition's lean and inauspicious loam).
She will love well," I said, "The flowers of the dead; Where dark Persephone the winter round, Uncomforted for home, uncomforted, Lacking a sunny southern slope in northern Sicily, With sullen pupils focussed on a dream, Stares on the stagnant stream That moats the unequivocable battlements of Hell, There, there will she be found, She that is Beauty veiled from men and Music in a swound.
" "I long for Silence as they long for breath Whose helpless nostrils drink the bitter sea; What thing can be So stout, what so redoubtable, in Death What fury, what considerable rage, if only she, Upon whose icy breast, Unquestioned, uncaressed, One time I lay, And whom always I lack, Even to this day, Being by no means from that frigid bosom weaned away, If only she therewith be given me back?" I sought her down that dolorous labyrinth, Wherein no shaft of sunlight ever fell, And in among the bloodless everywhere I sought her, but the air, Breathed many times and spent, Was fretful with a whispering discontent, And questioning me, importuning me to tell Some slightest tidings of the light of day they know no more, Plucking my sleeve, the eager shades were with me where I went.
I paused at every grievous door, And harked a moment, holding up my hand,—and for a space A hush was on them, while they watched my face; And then they fell a-whispering as before; So that I smiled at them and left them, seeing she was not there.
I sought her, too, Among the upper gods, although I knew She was not like to be where feasting is, Nor near to Heaven's lord, Being a thing abhorred And shunned of him, although a child of his, (Not yours, not yours; to you she owes not breath, Mother of Song, being sown of Zeus upon a dream of Death).
Fearing to pass unvisited some place And later learn, too late, how all the while, With her still face, She had been standing there and seen me pass, without a smile, I sought her even to the sagging board whereat The stout immortals sat; But such a laughter shook the mighty hall No one could hear me say: Had she been seen upon the Hill that day? And no one knew at all How long I stood, or when at last I sighed and went away.
There is a garden lying in a lull Between the mountains and the mountainous sea, I know not where, but which a dream diurnal Paints on my lids a moment till the hull Be lifted from the kernel And Slumber fed to me.
Your foot-print is not there, Mnemosene, Though it would seem a ruined place and after Your lichenous heart, being full Of broken columns, caryatides Thrown to the earth and fallen forward on their jointless knees, And urns funereal altered into dust Minuter than the ashes of the dead, And Psyche's lamp out of the earth up-thrust, Dripping itself in marble wax on what was once the bed Of Love, and his young body asleep, but now is dust instead.
There twists the bitter-sweet, the white wisteria Fastens its fingers in the strangling wall, And the wide crannies quicken with bright weeds; There dumbly like a worm all day the still white orchid feeds; But never an echo of your daughters' laughter Is there, nor any sign of you at all Swells fungous from the rotten bough, grey mother of Pieria! Only her shadow once upon a stone I saw,—and, lo, the shadow and the garden, too, were gone.
I tell you you have done her body an ill, You chatterers, you noisy crew! She is not anywhere! I sought her in deep Hell; And through the world as well; I thought of Heaven and I sought her there; Above nor under ground Is Silence to be found, That was the very warp and woof of you, Lovely before your songs began and after they were through! Oh, say if on this hill Somewhere your sister's body lies in death, So I may follow there, and make a wreath Of my locked hands, that on her quiet breast Shall lie till age has withered them! (Ah, sweetly from the rest I see Turn and consider me Compassionate Euterpe!) "There is a gate beyond the gate of Death, Beyond the gate of everlasting Life, Beyond the gates of Heaven and Hell," she saith, "Whereon but to believe is horror! Whereon to meditate engendereth Even in deathless spirits such as I A tumult in the breath, A chilling of the inexhaustible blood Even in my veins that never will be dry, And in the austere, divine monotony That is my being, the madness of an unaccustomed mood.
This is her province whom you lack and seek; And seek her not elsewhere.
Hell is a thoroughfare For pilgrims,—Herakles, And he that loved Euridice too well, Have walked therein; and many more than these; And witnessed the desire and the despair Of souls that passed reluctantly and sicken for the air; You, too, have entered Hell, And issued thence; but thence whereof I speak None has returned;—for thither fury brings Only the driven ghosts of them that flee before all things.
Oblivion is the name of this abode: and she is there.
" Oh, radiant Song! Oh, gracious Memory! Be long upon this height I shall not climb again! I know the way you mean,—the little night, And the long empty day,—never to see Again the angry light, Or hear the hungry noises cry my brain! Ah, but she, Your other sister and my other soul, She shall again be mine; And I shall drink her from a silver bowl, A chilly thin green wine, Not bitter to the taste, Not sweet, Not of your press, oh, restless, clamorous nine,— To foam beneath the frantic hoofs of mirth— But savoring faintly of the acid earth, And trod by pensive feet From perfect clusters ripened without haste Out of the urgent heat In some clear glimmering vaulted twilight under the odorous vine .
Lift up your lyres! Sing on! But as for me, I seek your sister whither she is gone.


Written by Emily Dickinson | Create an image from this poem

Drowning is not so pitiful

 Drowning is not so pitiful
As the attempt to rise
Three times, 'tis said, a sinking man
Comes up to face the skies,
And then declines forever
To that abhorred abode,
Where hope and he part company --
For he is grasped of God.
The Maker's cordial visage, However good to see, Is shunned, we must admit it, Like an adversity.
Written by Thomas Hood | Create an image from this poem

The Haunted House

 Oh, very gloomy is the house of woe,
Where tears are falling while the bell is knelling,
With all the dark solemnities that show
That Death is in the dwelling!

Oh, very, very dreary is the room
Where Love, domestic Love, no longer nestles,
But smitten by the common stroke of doom,
The corpse lies on the trestles!

But house of woe, and hearse, and sable pall,
The narrow home of the departed mortal,
Ne’er looked so gloomy as that Ghostly Hall,
With its deserted portal!

The centipede along the threshold crept,
The cobweb hung across in mazy tangle,
And in its winding sheet the maggot slept
At every nook and angle.
The keyhole lodged the earwig and her brood, The emmets of the steps has old possession, And marched in search of their diurnal food In undisturbed procession.
As undisturbed as the prehensile cell Of moth or maggot, or the spider’s tissue, For never foot upon that threshold fell, To enter or to issue.
O’er all there hung the shadow of a fear, A sense of mystery the spirit daunted, And said, as plain as whisper in the ear, The place is haunted.
Howbeit, the door I pushed—or so I dreamed-- Which slowly, slowly gaped, the hinges creaking With such a rusty eloquence, it seemed That Time himself was speaking.
But Time was dumb within that mansion old, Or left his tale to the heraldic banners That hung from the corroded walls, and told Of former men and manners.
Those tattered flags, that with the opened door, Seemed the old wave of battle to remember, While fallen fragments danced upon the floor Like dead leaves in December.
The startled bats flew out, bird after bird, The screech-owl overhead began to flutter, And seemed to mock the cry that she had heard Some dying victim utter! A shriek that echoed from the joisted roof, And up the stair, and further still and further, Till in some ringing chamber far aloof In ceased its tale of murther! Meanwhile the rusty armor rattled round, The banner shuddered, and the ragged streamer; All things the horrid tenor of the sound Acknowledged with a tremor.
The antlers where the helmet hung, and belt, Stirred as the tempest stirs the forest branches, Or as the stag had trembled when he felt The bloodhound at his haunches.
The window jingled in its crumbled frame, And through its many gaps of destitution Dolorous moans and hollow sighings came, Like those of dissolution.
The wood-louse dropped, and rolled into a ball, Touched by some impulse occult or mechanic; And nameless beetles ran along the wall In universal panic.
The subtle spider, that, from overhead, Hung like a spy on human guilt and error, Suddenly turned, and up its slender thread Ran with a nimble terror.
The very stains and fractures on the wall, Assuming features solemn and terrific, Hinted some tragedy of that old hall, Locked up in hieroglyphic.
Some tale that might, perchance, have solved the doubt, Wherefore, among those flags so dull and livid, The banner of the bloody hand shone out So ominously vivid.
Some key to that inscrutable appeal Which made the very frame of Nature quiver, And every thrilling nerve and fiber feel So ague-like a shiver.
For over all there hung a cloud of fear, A sense of mystery the spirit daunted, And said, as plain as whisper in the ear, The place is haunted! Prophetic hints that filled the soul with dread, But through one gloomy entrance pointing mostly, The while some secret inspiration said, “That chamber is the ghostly!” Across the door no gossamer festoon Swung pendulous, --no web, no dusty fringes, No silky chrysalis or white cocoon, About its nooks and hinges.
The spider shunned the interdicted room, The moth, the beetle, and the fly were banished, And when the sunbeam fell athwart the gloom, The very midge had vanished.
One lonely ray that glanced upon a bed, As if with awful aim direct and certain, To show the Bloody Hand, in burning red, Embroidered on the curtain.
Written by Ogden Nash | Create an image from this poem

Childrens Party

 May I join you in the doghouse, Rover?
I wish to retire till the party's over.
Since three o'clock I've done my best To entertain each tiny guest.
My conscience now I've left behind me, And if they want me, let them find me.
I blew their bubbles, I sailed their boats, I kept them from each other's throats.
I told them tales of magic lands, I took them out to wash their hands.
I sorted their rubbers and tied their laces, I wiped their noses and dried their faces.
Of similarities there's lots Twixt tiny tots and Hottentots.
I've earned repose to heal the ravages Of these angelic-looking savages.
Oh, progeny playing by itself Is a lonely little elf, But progeny in roistering batches Would drive St.
francis from here to Natchez.
Shunned are the games a parent proposes, They prefer to squirt each other with hoses, Their playmates are their natural foemen And they like to poke each other's abdomen.
Their joy needs another woe's to cushion it, Say a puddle, and someone littler to push in it.
They observe with glee the ballistic results Of ice cream with spoons for catapults, And inform the assembly with tears and glares That everyone's presents are better than theirs.
Oh, little women and little men, Someday I hope to love you again, But not till after the party's over, So give me the key to the doghouse, Rover
Written by Robert William Service | Create an image from this poem

The Ballad Of Blasphemous Bill

 I took a contract to bury the body of blasphemous Bill MacKie,
Whenever, wherever or whatsoever the manner of death he die--
Whether he die in the light o' day or under the peak-faced moon;
In cabin or dance-hall, camp or dive, mucklucks or patent shoon;
On velvet tundra or virgin peak, by glacier, drift or draw;
In muskeg hollow or canyon gloom, by avalanche, fang or claw;
By battle, murder or sudden wealth, by pestilence, hooch or lead--
I swore on the Book I would follow and look till I found my tombless dead.
For Bill was a dainty kind of cuss, and his mind was mighty sot On a dinky patch with flowers and grass in a civilized bone-yard lot.
And where he died or how he died, it didn't matter a damn So long as he had a grave with frills and a tombstone "epigram".
So I promised him, and he paid the price in good cheechako coin (Which the same I blowed in that very night down in the Tenderloin).
Then I painted a three-foot slab of pine: "Here lies poor Bill MacKie", And I hung it up on my cabin wall and I waited for Bill to die.
Years passed away, and at last one day came a squaw with a story strange, Of a long-deserted line of traps 'way back of the Bighorn range; Of a little hut by the great divide, and a white man stiff and still, Lying there by his lonesome self, and I figured it must be Bill.
So I thought of the contract I'd made with him, and I took down from the shelf The swell black box with the silver plate he'd picked out for hisself; And I packed it full of grub and "hooch", and I slung it on the sleigh; Then I harnessed up my team of dogs and was off at dawn of day.
You know what it's like in the Yukon wild when it's sixty-nine below; When the ice-worms wriggle their purple heads through the crust of the pale blue snow; When the pine-trees crack like little guns in the silence of the wood, And the icicles hang down like tusks under the parka hood; When the stove-pipe smoke breaks sudden off, and the sky is weirdly lit, And the careless feel of a bit of steel burns like a red-hot spit; When the mercury is a frozen ball, and the frost-fiend stalks to kill-- Well, it was just like that that day when I set out to look for Bill.
Oh, the awful hush that seemed to crush me down on every hand, As I blundered blind with a trail to find through that blank and bitter land; Half dazed, half crazed in the winter wild, with its grim heart-breaking woes, And the ruthless strife for a grip on life that only the sourdough knows! North by the compass, North I pressed; river and peak and plain Passed like a dream I slept to lose and I waked to dream again.
River and plain and mighty peak--and who could stand unawed? As their summits blazed, he could stand undazed at the foot of the throne of God.
North, aye, North, through a land accurst, shunned by the scouring brutes, And all I heard was my own harsh word and the whine of the malamutes, Till at last I came to a cabin squat, built in the side of a hill, And I burst in the door, and there on the floor, frozen to death, lay Bill.
Ice, white ice, like a winding-sheet, sheathing each smoke-grimed wall; Ice on the stove-pipe, ice on the bed, ice gleaming over all; Sparkling ice on the dead man's chest, glittering ice in his hair, Ice on his fingers, ice in his heart, ice in his glassy stare; Hard as a log and trussed like a frog, with his arms and legs outspread.
I gazed at the coffin I'd brought for him, and I gazed at the gruesome dead, And at last I spoke: "Bill liked his joke; but still, goldarn his eyes, A man had ought to consider his mates in the way he goes and dies.
" Have you ever stood in an Arctic hut in the shadow of the Pole, With a little coffin six by three and a grief you can't control? Have you ever sat by a frozen corpse that looks at you with a grin, And that seems to say: "You may try all day, but you'll never jam me in"? I'm not a man of the quitting kind, but I never felt so blue As I sat there gazing at that stiff and studying what I'd do.
Then I rose and I kicked off the husky dogs that were nosing round about, And I lit a roaring fire in the stove, and I started to thaw Bill out.
Well, I thawed and thawed for thirteen days, but it didn't seem no good; His arms and legs stuck out like pegs, as if they was made of wood.
Till at last I said: "It ain't no use--he's froze too hard to thaw; He's obstinate, and he won't lie straight, so I guess I got to--saw.
" So I sawed off poor Bill's arms and legs, and I laid him snug and straight In the little coffin he picked hisself, with the dinky silver plate; And I came nigh near to shedding a tear as I nailed him safely down; Then I stowed him away in my Yukon sleigh, and I started back to town.
So I buried him as the contract was in a narrow grave and deep, And there he's waiting the Great Clean-up, when the Judgment sluice-heads sweep; And I smoke my pipe and I meditate in the light of the Midnight Sun, And sometimes I wonder if they was, the awful things I done.
And as I sit and the parson talks, expounding of the Law, I often think of poor old Bill--and how hard he was to saw.


Written by Oliver Wendell Holmes | Create an image from this poem

The Iron Gate

 WHERE is this patriarch you are kindly greeting?
Not unfamiliar to my ear his name,
Nor yet unknown to many a joyous meeting
In days long vanished,-- is he still the same,

Or changed by years, forgotten and forgetting,
Dull-eared, dim-sighted, slow of speech and thought,
Still o'er the sad, degenerate present fretting,
Where all goes wrong, and nothing as it ought?

Old age, the graybeard! Well, indeed, I know him,--
Shrunk, tottering, bent, of aches and ills the prey;
In sermon, story, fable, picture, poem,
Oft have I met him from my earliest day:

In my old Aesop, toiling with his bundle,--
His load of sticks,-- politely asking Death,
Who comes when called for,-- would he lug or trundle
His fagot for him?-- he was scant of breath.
And sad "Ecclesiastes, or the Preacher,"-- Has he not stamped tbe image on my soul, In that last chapter, where the worn-out Teacher Sighs o'er the loosened cord, the broken bowl? Yes, long, indeed, I 've known him at a distance, And now my lifted door-latch shows him here; I take his shrivelled hand without resistance, And find him smiling as his step draws near.
What though of gilded baubles he bereaves us, Dear to the heart of youth, to manhood's prime; Think of the calm he brings, the wealth he leaves us, The hoarded spoils, the legacies of time! Altars once flaming, still with incense fragrant, Passion's uneasy nurslings rocked asleep, Hope's anchor faster, wild desire less vagrant, Life's flow less noisy, but the stream how deep! Still as the silver cord gets worn and slender, Its lightened task-work tugs with lessening strain, Hands get more helpful, voices, grown more tender, Soothe with their softened tones the slumberous brain.
Youth longs and manhood strives, but age remembers, Sits by the raked-up ashes of the past, Spreads its thin hands above the whitening embers That warm its creeping life-blood till the last.
Dear to its heart is every loving token That comes unbidden era its pulse grows cold, Ere the last lingering ties of life are broken, Its labors ended and its story told.
Ah, while around us rosy youth rejoices, For us the sorrow-laden breezes sigh, And through the chorus of its jocund voices Throbs the sharp note of misery's hopeless cry.
As on the gauzy wings of fancy flying From some far orb I track our watery sphere, Home of the struggling, suffering, doubting, dying, The silvered globule seems a glistening tear.
But Nature lends her mirror of illusion To win from saddening scenes our age-dimmed eyes, And misty day-dreams blend in sweet confusion The wintry landscape and the summer skies.
So when the iron portal shuts behind us, And life forgets us in its noise and whirl, Visions that shunned the glaring noonday find us, And glimmering starlight shows the gates of pearl.
I come not here your morning hour to sadden, A limping pilgrim, leaning on his staff,-- I, who have never deemed it sin to gladden This vale of sorrows with a wholesome laugh.
If word of mine another's gloom has brightened, Through my dumb lips the heaven-sent message came; If hand of mine another's task has lightened, It felt the guidance that it dares not claim.
But, O my gentle sisters, O my brothers, These thick-sown snow-flakes hint of toil's release; These feebler pulses bid me leave to others The tasks once welcome; evening asks for peace.
Time claims his tribute; silence now golden; Let me not vex the too long suffering lyre; Though to your love untiring still beholden, The curfew tells me-- cover up the fire.
And now with grateful smile and accents cheerful, And warmer heart than look or word can tell, In simplest phrase-- these traitorous eyes are tearful-- Thanks, Brothers, Sisters,-- Children,-- and farewell!
Written by Thomas Hardy | Create an image from this poem

The To-Be-Forgotten

 I
I heard a small sad sound,
And stood awhile among the tombs around:
"Wherefore, old friends," said I, "are you distrest,
Now, screened from life's unrest?"

II
--"O not at being here;
But that our future second death is near;
When, with the living, memory of us numbs,
And blank oblivion comes!

III
"These, our sped ancestry,
Lie here embraced by deeper death than we;
Nor shape nor thought of theirs can you descry
With keenest backward eye.
IV "They count as quite forgot; They are as men who have existed not; Theirs is a loss past loss of fitful breath; It is the second death.
V "We here, as yet, each day Are blest with dear recall; as yet, can say We hold in some soul loved continuance Of shape and voice and glance.
VI "But what has been will be -- First memory, then oblivion's swallowing sea; Like men foregone, shall we merge into those Whose story no one knows.
VII "For which of us could hope To show in life that world-awakening scope Granted the few whose memory none lets die, But all men magnify? VIII "We were but Fortune's sport; Things true, things lovely, things of good report We neither shunned nor sought .
.
.
We see our bourne, And seeing it we mourn.
"
Written by Kahlil Gibran | Create an image from this poem

Song of the Soul XXII

 In the depth of my soul there is 
A wordless song - a song that lives 
In the seed of my heart.
It refuses to melt with ink on Parchment; it engulfs my affection In a transparent cloak and flows, But not upon my lips.
How can I sigh it? I fear it may Mingle with earthly ether; To whom shall I sing it? It dwells In the house of my soul, in fear of Harsh ears.
When I look into my inner eyes I see the shadow of its shadow; When I touch my fingertips I feel its vibrations.
The deeds of my hands heed its Presence as a lake must reflect The glittering stars; my tears Reveal it, as bright drops of dew Reveal the secret of a withering rose.
It is a song composed by contemplation, And published by silence, And shunned by clamor, And folded by truth, And repeated by dreams, And understood by love, And hidden by awakening, And sung by the soul.
It is the song of love; What Cain or Esau could sing it? It is more fragrant than jasmine; What voice could enslave it? It is heartbound, as a virgin's secret; What string could quiver it? Who dares unite the roar of the sea And the singing of the nightingale? Who dares compare the shrieking tempest To the sigh of an infant? Who dares speak aloud the words Intended for the heart to speak? What human dares sing in voice The song of God?
Written by Robert William Service | Create an image from this poem

The Law Of The Yukon

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

Camerons Heart

 The diggings were just in their glory when Alister Cameron came, 
With recommendations, he told me, from friends and a parson `at hame'; 
He read me his recommendations -- he called them a part of his plant -- 
The first one was signed by an Elder, the other by Cameron's aunt.
The meenister called him `ungodly -- a stray frae the fauld o' the Lord', And his aunt set him down as a spendthrift, `a rebel at hame and abroad'.
He got drunk now and then and he gambled (such heroes are often the same); That's all they could say in connection with Alister Cameron's name.
He was straight and he stuck to his country and spoke with respect of his kirk; He did his full share of the cooking, and more than his share of the work.
And many a poor devil then, when his strength and his money were spent, Was sure of a lecture -- and tucker, and a shakedown in Cameron's tent.
He shunned all the girls in the camp, and they said he was proof to the dart -- That nothing but whisky and gaming had ever a place in his heart; He carried a packet about him, well hid, but I saw it at last, And -- well, 'tis a very old story -- the story of Cameron's past: A ring and a sprig o' white heather, a letter or two and a curl, A bit of a worn silver chain, and the portrait of Cameron's girl.
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It chanced in the first of the Sixties that Ally and I and McKean Were sinking a shaft on Mundoorin, near Fosberry's puddle-machine.
The bucket we used was a big one, and rather a weight when 'twas full, Though Alister wound it up easy, for he had the strength of a bull.
He hinted at heart-disease often, but, setting his fancy apart, I always believed there was nothing the matter with Cameron's heart.
One day I was working below -- I was filling the bucket with clay, When Alister cried, `Pack it on, mon! we ought to be bottomed to-day.
' He wound, and the bucket rose steady and swift to the surface until It reached the first log on the top, where it suddenly stopped, and hung still.
I knew what was up in a moment when Cameron shouted to me: `Climb up for your life by the footholes.
I'LL STICK TAE TH' HAUN'LE -- OR DEE!' And those were the last words he uttered.
He groaned, for I heard him quite plain -- There's nothing so awful as that when it's wrung from a workman in pain.
The strength of despair was upon me; I started, and scarcely drew breath, But climbed to the top for my life in the fear of a terrible death.
And there, with his waist on the handle, I saw the dead form of my mate, And over the shaft hung the bucket, suspended by Cameron's weight.
I wonder did Alister think of the scenes in the distance so dim, When Death at the windlass that morning took cruel advantage of him? He knew if the bucket rushed down it would murder or cripple his mate -- His hand on the iron was closed with a grip that was stronger than Fate; He thought of my danger, not his, when he felt in his bosom the smart, And stuck to the handle in spite of the Finger of Death on his heart.