Men Of The High North



Men of the High North, the wild sky is blazing;
        Islands of opal float on silver seas;
Swift splendors kindle, barbaric, amazing;
        Pale ports of amber, golden argosies.
Ringed all around us the proud peaks are glowing;
        Fierce chiefs in council, their wigwam the sky;
Far, far below us the big Yukon flowing,
        Like threaded quicksilver, gleams to the eye.

Men of the High North, you who have known it;
        You in whose hearts its splendors have abode;
Can you renounce it, can you disown it?
        Can you forget it, its glory and its goad?
Where is the hardship, where is the pain of it?
        Lost in the limbo of things you've forgot;
Only remain the guerdon and gain of it;
        Zest of the foray, and God, how you fought!

You who have made good, you foreign faring;
        You money magic to far lands has whirled;
Can you forget those days of vast daring,
        There with your soul on the Top o' the World?
Nights when no peril could keep you awake on
        Spruce boughs you spread for your couch in the snow;
Taste all your feasts like the beans and the bacon
        Fried at the camp-fire at forty below?

Can you remember your huskies all going,
        Barking with joy and their brushes in air;
You in your parka, glad-eyed and glowing,
        Monarch, your subjects the wolf and the bear?
Monarch, your kingdom unravisht and gleaming;
        Mountains your throne, and a river your car;
Crash of a bull moose to rouse you from dreaming;
        Forest your couch, and your candle a star.

You who this faint day the High North is luring
        Unto her vastness, taintlessly sweet;
You who are steel-braced, straight-lipped, enduring,
        Dreadless in danger and dire in defeat:
Honor the High North ever and ever,
        Whether she crown you, or whether she slay;
Suffer her fury, cherish and love her--
        He who would rule he must learn to obey.

Men of the High North, fierce mountains love you;
        Proud rivers leap when you ride on their breast.
See, the austere sky, pensive above you,
        Dons all her jewels to smile on your rest.
Children of Freedom, scornful of frontiers,
        We who are weaklings honor your worth.
Lords of the wilderness, Princes of Pioneers,
        Let's have a rouse that will ring round the earth.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 19, 2023

1:56 min read
142

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABABACAC DEDEDXDX XFAFXGXG AHAHAIAI AJAJKLKL MNMNOPOP
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 2,275
Words 387
Stanzas 6
Stanza Lengths 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8

Robert William Service

Robert William Service was a poet and writer sometimes referred to as the Bard of the Yukon He is best-known for his writings on the Canadian North including the poems The Shooting of Dan McGrew The Law of the Yukon and The Cremation of Sam McGee His writing was so expressive that his readers took him for a hard-bitten old Klondike prospector not the later-arriving bank clerk he actually was Robert William Service was born 16 January 1874 in Preston England but also lived in Scotland before emigrating to Canada in 1894 Service went to the Yukon Territory in 1904 as a bank clerk and became famous for his poems about this region which are mostly in his first two books of poetry He wrote quite a bit of prose as well and worked as a reporter for some time but those writings are not nearly as well known as his poems He travelled around the world quite a bit and narrowly escaped from France at the beginning of the Second World War during which time he lived in Hollywood California He died 11 September 1958 in France Incidentally he played himself in a movie called The Spoilers starring John Wayne and Marlene Dietrich more…

All Robert William Service poems | Robert William Service Books

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