lp discography - covers & lyrics

1.

SPELL OF THE YUKON

(Robert W. Service - Anita Kerr) «© '61 Tree Publishing, BMI »
I wanted the gold and I sought it I scrabbled and mucked like a slave
Was it famine or scurvy I fought it I hurled my youth into a grave
I wanted the gold and I got it came out with a fortune last fall
Yet somehow life's not what I thought it and somehow the gold isn't all

No there's the land have you seen it it's the cussedest land that I know
From the big dizzy mountains that screen it to the deep death-like valleys below
Some say God was tired when he made it some say it's a fine land to shun
Maybe but there's some that would trade it for no land owner and I'm one

You come to get rich that's a good reason you feel like an exile at first
You hate it like hell for a season and then you're worse than the worst
It grips you like some kinds of sinning it twists you from foe to a friend
It seems it's been since the beginning it seems it will be to the end

I've stood in some mighty mouthed-hollow that's plumb full of hush to the brim
I've watched the big husky sun wallow in crimson and gold and grow dim
Till the moon set the pearly peaks gleaming and the stars tumbled out neck and crop
And I thought that I surely was dreaming with the peace of the world piled on top

The summer no sweeter was ever the sunshiny woods all a thrill
The grayling a leap in the river the bighorn asleep on a hill
The strong life that never knows harness the wilds where the caribou call
The freshness the freedom the farness oh God how I'm stuck on it all

The winter the brightness that blinds you the white land locked tight as a drum
The cold fear that follows and finds you the silence that bludgeons you dumb
The snows that are older than history the woods where the weird shadows slant
The stillness the moonlight the myst'ry I'd bade them goodbye but I can't

There's a land where the mountains are nameless
And the rivers all run God knows where
There are lives that are erring and aimless and deaths that just hang by a hair
There are hardships that nobody reckons there are valleys unpeopled and still
There's a land oh how it beckons and beckons and I want to go back and I will

They're making my money diminish I'm sick of the taste of champagne
Thank God when I'm skinned to a finish I'll pike to the Yukon again
I'll fight and you bet it's no sham fight it's hell but I've been there before
And it's better than this by a damn sight so me for the Yukon once more

There's gold and its haunting and haunting it's luring me on as of old
Yet it isn't the gold that I'm wanting so much as just finding the gold
It's the great big broadland way up yonder it's the forest where silence has lease
It's the beauty that thrills me with wonder it's the stillness that fills me with peace
**********

2.

CREMATION OF SAM MCGEE

(Robert W. Service - Anita Kerr) «© '68 Tree Publishing, BMI »
There are strange things done in the midnight sun by the men who moil for gold
The Arctic trails have their secret tales that would make your blood run cold
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights but the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge I cremated Sam McGee

Now Sam McGee was from Tennessee where the cotton blooms and blows
Why he left his home in the South to roam round the Pole God only knows
He was always cold but the land of gold seemed to hold him like a spell
Though he'd often say in his homely way that he'd sooner live in hell

On a Christmas Day we were mushing our way over the Dawson trail
Talk of your cold through the parka's fold it stabbed like a driven nail
If our eyes we'd close then the lashes froze till sometimes we couldn't see
It wasn't much fun but the only one to whimper was Sam McGee

And that very night as we lay packed tight in our robes beneath the snow
And the dogs were fed and the stars o'er head were dancing heel and toe
He turned to me and Cap says he I'll cash in this trip I guess
And if I do I'm asking that you won't refuse my last request

Well he seemed so low that I couldn't say no then he says with a sort of moan
It's the cursed cold and it's got right hold till I'm chilled clean through to the bone
Yet taint being dead it's my awful dread of the icy grave that pains
So I want you to swear that foul or fair you'll cremate my last remains

A pal's last need is a thing to heed so I swore I would not fail
And we started on at the streak of dawn but God! he looked ghastly pale
He crouched on the sleigh and he raved all day of his home in Tennessee
And before nightfall a corpse was all that was left of Sam McGee

There wasn't a breath in that land of death and I hurried horror-driven
With a corpse half hid that I couldn't get rid because of a promise given
It was lashed to the sleigh and it seemed to say you may tax your brawn and brains
But you promised true and it's up to you to cremate those last remains

Now a promise made is a debt unpaid and the trail has its own stern code
In the days to come though my lips were dumb in my heart how I cursed that load
In the long long night by the lone firelight while the huskies round in a ring
Howled out their woes to the homeless snows oh God! how I loathed the thing

And every day that quiet clay seemed to heavy and heavier grow
And on I went though the dogs were spent and the grub was getting low
The trail was bad and I felt half mad but I swore I would not give in
And I'd often sing to the hateful thing and it hearkened with a grin

Till I came to the marge of Lake Lebarge and a derelict there lay
It was jammed in the ice but I saw in a trice it was called the Alice May
And I looked at it and I thought a bit and I looked at my frozen chum
Then Here said I with a sudden cry is my crematoreum

Some planks I tore from the cabin floor and I lit the boiler fire
Some coal I found that was lying around and I heaped the fuel higher
The flames just soared and the furnace roared such a blaze you seldom see
And I burrowed a hole in the glowing coal and I stuffed in Sam McGee

Then I made a hike for I didn't like to hear him sizzle so
And the heavens scowled and the huskies howled and the wind began to blow
It was icy cold but the hot sweat rolled down my cheeks and I don't know why
And the greasy smoke in an inky cloak went streaking down the sky

I do not know how long in the snow I wrestled with grisly fear
But the stars came out and they danced about ere again I ventured near
I was sick with dread but I bravely said: I'll just take a peep inside
I guess he's cooked and it's time I looked then the door I opened wide

And there sat Sam looking cool and calm in the heart of the furnace roar
And he wore a smile you could see a mile and he said please close that door
It's fine in here but I greatly fear you'll let in the cold and storm
Since I left Plumtree down in Tennessee it's the first time I've been warm

There are strange things done in the midnight sun by the men who moil for gold
The Arctic trails have their secret tales that would make your blood run cold
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights but the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge I cremated Sam McGee
**********

3.

DANGEROUS DAN MCGREW

(Robert W. Service - Anita Kerr) «© '68 Tree Publishing, BMI »
A bunch of the boys were whooping it up in the Malamute saloon
The kid that handles the music-box was hitting a jag-time tune
Back at the bar in a solo game sat Dangerous Dan McGrew
And watching his luck was his light of love the lady that's known as Lou

When out of the night which was fifty below and into the din and the glare
There stumbled a miner fresh from the creeks dog dirty and loaded for bear
He looked like a man with a foot in the grave and scarcely the strength of a louse
Yet he tilted a poke of dust on the bar and he called for drinks on the house

There was none could place the stranger's face though we searched ourselves for a clue
But we drank his health and the last to drink was Dangerous Dan McGrew
There's men that somehow just grip your eyes and hold them hard like a spell
And such was he and he looked to me like a man who had lived in hell

With a face most hair and the dreary stare of a dog whose day is done
As he watered the green stuff in his glass and the drops fell one by one
Then I got to figgering who he was and wondering what he'd do
And I turned my head and there watching him was the lady that's known as Lou

His eyes went rubbering round the room and he seemed in a kind of daze
Till at last that old piano fell in the way of his wondering gaze
The rag-time kid was having a drink there was no one else on the stool
So the stranger stumbles across the room and flops down there like a fool

In a buckskin shirt that was glazed with dirt he sat and I saw him sway
Then he clutched the keys with his talon hands my God but that man could play
Were you ever out in the great alone when the moon was awful clear
And the icy mountains hemmed you in with a silence you most could hear

With only the howl of a timber wolf and you camped there in the cold
A half-dead thing in the stark dead world clean mad for the muck called gold
While high overhead green yellow and red the North Lights swept in bars
Then you've got a hunch what the music meant hunger and night and the stars

And hunger not of the belly kind that's banished with bacon and beans
But the gnawing hunger of lonely men for a home and all that it means
For a fireside far from the cares that are four walls and a roof above
But oh! so cramful of cosy joy and crowned with a woman's love

A woman dearer than all the world and true as Heaven is true
God how ghastly she looks through her rouge the lady that's known as Lou
Then all of a sudden the music changed so soft that you scarce could hear
But you felt that your life had been looted clean of all that it once held dear

That someone had stolen the woman you loved that her love was a devil's lie
That your guts were gone and the best of you was to crawl away and die
Twas the crowning cry of a heart's despair and it thrilled you through and through
I guess I'll make it a spread misere said Dangerous Dan McGrew

The music almost died away then it burst like a pent-up flood
And it seemed to say repay repay and my eyes were blind with blood
The thought came back of an ancient wrong and it stung like a frozen lash
And the lust awoke to kill to kill then the music stopped with a crash

And the stranger turned and his eyes they burned in a most peculiar way
In a buckskin shirt that was glazed with dirt he sat and I saw him sway
Then his lips went in in a kind of a grin and he spoke and his voice was calm
And boys says he you don't know me and none of you care a damn

But I want to state and my words are straight and I'll bet my poke they're true
That one of you is a hound of hell and that one is Dan McGrew
Then I ducked my head and the lights went out and two guns blazed in the dark
And a woman screamed and the lights went up and two men lay stiff and stark
Pitched on his head and pumped full of lead was Dangerous Dan McGrew
While the man from the creeks lay clutched to the breast of the Lady that's known as Lou

These are the simple facts of the case and I guess I ought to know
They say that the stranger was crazed with hooch and I'm not denying it's so
I'm not so wise as the lawyer guys but strictly between us two
The woman that kissed him and pinched his poke was the lady that's known as Lou
**********

4.

FACE ON THE BARROOM FLOOR

(Robert W. Service - Anita Kerr) «© '59 Tree Publishing, BMI »
Twas a balmy summer evening and a goodly crowd was there
Which well-nigh filled Joe's barroom on the corner of the square
And as songs and witty stories came through the door
A vagabond crept slowly in and posed upon the floor

Where did it come from someone said the wind has blown it in
What does it want another cried some whiskey rum or gin
Here Toby seek him if your stomach's equal to the work
I wouldn't touch him with a fork he's filthy as a Turk

This baninage the poor wretch took with stocial good grace
In fact he smiled as though he though he'd struck the proper place
Come boys I know there'd kindly hearts among so good a crowd
To be in such good company would make a deacon proud

Give me a drink that's what I want I'm out of funds you know
When I had cash to treat the gang this hand was never slow
What you laugh as though you thought this pocket never held a sov
I once was fixed as well my boys as any one of you

There thanks that's braced me nicely God bless you one and all
Next time I pass this good saloon I'll make another call
Give you a song no I can't do that my singing days are past
My voice is cracked my throat's worn out and my lungs are going fast

Say give me another whiskey and I'll tell you what I'll do
I'll tell you a funny story and a fact I promise too
That I was ever a decent man not one of you would think
But I was some four or five years back say give me another drink

Fill her up Joe I want to put some life into my frame
Such little drinks to a bum like me are miserably tame
Five fingers there that's the scheme and corking whiskey too
Well here's luck boys and landlord my best regards to you

You've treated me pretty kindly and I'd like to tell you how
I came to be the dirty sot you see before you now
As I told you once I was a man with muscle frame and health
And but for a blunder ought to have made considerable wealth

I was a painter not one that daubed on bricks and wood
But an artist and for my age was rated pretty good
I worked hard at my canvas and was bidding fair to rise
For gradually I saw the star of fame before my eyes

I made a picture perhaps you've seen 'tis called the Chase of Fame
It brought me fifteen hundred pounds and added to my name
And then I met a woman now comes the funny part
With eyes that petrified my brain and sunk into my heart

Why don't you laugh 'tis funny that the vagabond you see
Could ever love a woman and a expect her love for me
But 'twas so and for a month or two her smiles were freely given
And when he loving lips touched mine it carried me to heaven

Did you ever see a woman for whom your soul you'd give
With a form like the Milo Venus too beautiful to live
With eyes that would beat the Koh-i-noor and a wealth of chesnut nair
If so 'twas she for there never was another half so fair

I was working on a portrait one afternoon in May
Of a fair haired boy a friend of mine who lived across the way
And Madeline admired it and much to my surprise
Said that she'd like to know the man that had such dreamy eyes

It didn't take long to know him and before the month had flown
My friend had stolen my darling and I was left alone
And eve a year of misery had possed above my head
The jewel I had treasured so had tarnished and was dead

That's why I took to drink boys why I never saw you smile
I thought you'd be amused and laughing all the while
Why what's the matter friend there's a teardrop in your eye
Come laugh like me 'tis only babes and woman that should cry

Say boys if you give me just another whiskey I'll be glad
And I'll draw right here a picture of the face that drove me mad
Give me that piece of chalk with which you mark the baseball score
You shall see the lovely Madeline upon the barroom floor

Another drink and with chalk in hand the vagabond began
To sketch a face that well might buy the soul of any man
Then as he placed another lock upon the shapely head
With a fearful shriek he leaped and fell across the picture
**********

5.

BALLAD OF BASPHEMOUS BILL

(Robert W. Service - Anita Kerr) «© '68 Tree Publishing, BMI »
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 boneyard 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 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 heartbraking 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 I thawed for thirteen days but it didn't seem no good
His arms and his legs stuck out like pegs as if they were 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 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
**********

6.

BALLAD OF ONE EYED MIKE

(Robert W. Service - Anita Kerr) «© '68 Tree Publishing, BMI »
This is the tale that was told to me by the man with the crystal eye
As I smoked my pipe in the camp-fire light and the Glories swept the sky
As the Northlights gleamed and curved and streamed and the bottle of hooch was dry

A man once aimed that my life be shamed and wrought me a deathly wrong
I vowed one day I would well repay but the heft of his hate was strong
He thonged me East and he thonged me West he harried me back and forth
Till I fled in fright from his peerless spite to the bleak bald-headed North

And there I lay and for many a day I hatched plan after plan
For a golden haul of the wherewithal to crush and to kill my man
And there I strove and there I clove through the drift of icy streams
And there I fought and there I sought for the pay-streak of my dreams

So twenty years with their hopes and fears and smiles and tears and such
Went by and left me long bereft of hope of the Midas touch
About as fat as a chancel rat and lo! despite my will
In the weary fight I had clean lost sight of the man I sought to kill

Twas so far away that evil day when I prayed to the Prince of Gloom
For the savage strength and the sullen length of life to work his doom
Nor sign nor word had I seen or heard and it happed so long ago
My youth was gone and my memory wan and I willed it even so

It fell one night in the waning light by the Yukon's oily flow
I smoked and sat as I marvelled at the sky's port-winey glow
Till it paled away to an absinthe gray and the river seemed to shrink
All wobbly flakes and wriggling snakes and goblin eyes a-wink

'Twas weird to see and it wildered me in a queer hypnotic dream
Till I saw a spot like an inky blot come floating down the stream
It bobbed and swung it sheered and hung it romped round in a ring
It seemed to play in a tricksome way it sure was a merry thing

In freakish flights strange oily lights came fluttering round its head
Like butterflies of a monster size then I knew it for the Dead
Its face was rubbed and slicked and scrubbed as smooth as a shaven pate
In the silver snakes that the water makes it gleamed like a dinner-plate

It gurgled near and clear and clear and large and large it grew
It stood upright in a ring of light and it looked me through and through
It weltered round with a woozy sound and ere I could retreat
With the witless roll of a sodden soul it wantoned to my feet

And here I swear by this Cross I wear I heard that floater say
I am the man from whom you ran the man you sought to slay
That you may note and gaze and gloat and say revenge is sweet
In the grit and grime of the river's slime I am rotting at your feet

The ill we rue we must e'en undo though it rive us bone from bone
So it came about that I sought you out for I prayed I might atone
I did you wrong and for long and long I sought where you might live
And now you're found though I'm dead and drowned I beg you to forgive

So sad it seemed and its cheek-bones gleamed and its fingers flicked the shore
And it lapped and lay in a weary way and its hands met to implore
That I gently said poor restless dead I would never work you woe
Though the wrong you rue you can ne'er undo I forgave you long ago

Then wonder-wise I rubbed my eyes and I woke from a horrid dream
The moon rode high in the naked sky and something bobbed in the stream
It held my sight in a patch of light and then it sheered from the shore
It dipped and sank by a hollow bank and I never saw it more

This was the tale he told to me that man so warped and gray
Ere he slept and dreamed and the camp-fire gleamed in his eye in a wolfish way
That crystal eye that raked the sky in the weird Auroral ray
**********

7.

BALLAD OF HARD LUCK HENRY

(Robert W. Service - Anita Kerr) «© '68 Tree Publishing, BMI »
Now wouldn't you expect to find a man an awful crank
That's staked out nigh three hundred claims and every one a blank
That's followed every fool stampede and seen the rise and fall
Of camps where men got gold in chunks and he got none at all
That's prospected a bit of ground and sold it for a song
To see it yield a fortune to some fool that came along
That's sunk a dozen bed-rock holes and not a speck in sight
Yet sees them take a million from the claims to left and right
Now aren't things like that enough to drive a man to booze
But Hard-Luck Smith was hoodoo-proof he knew the way to lose

Twas in the fall of nineteen four leap-year I've heard them say
When Hard-Luck came to Hunker Creek and took a hillside lay
And lo! as if to make amends for all the futile past
Late in the year he struck it rich the real pay-streak at last
The riffles of his sluicing-box were choked with speckled earth
And night and day he worked that lay for all that he was worth
And when in chill December's gloom his lucky lease expired
He found that he had made a stake as big as he desired

One day while meditating on the waywardness of fate
He felt the ache of lonely man to find a fitting mate
A petticoated pard to cheer his solitary life
A woman with soft soothing ways a confidant a wife
And while he cooked his supper on his little Yukon stove
He wished that he had staked a claim in Love's rich treasure-trove
When suddenly he paused and held aloft a Yukon egg
For there in pencilled letters was the magic name of Peg

You know these Yukon eggs of ours some pink some green some blue
A dollar per assorted tints assorted flavors too
The supercilious cheechako might designate them high
But one acquires a taste for them and likes them by and by
Well Hard-Luck Henry took this egg and held it to the light
And there was more faint pencilling that sorely taxed his sight
At last he made it out and then the legend ran like this
Will Klondike miner write to Peg Plumhollow Squashville Wis

That night he got to thinking of this far-off unknown fair
It seemed so sort of opportune an answer to his prayer
She flitted sweetly through his dreams she haunted him by day
She smiled through clouds of nicotine she cheered his weary way
At last he yielded to the spell his course of love he set
Wisconsin his objective point his object Margaret

With every mile of sea and land his longing grew and grew
He practised all his pretty words and these I fear were few
At last one frosty evening with a cold chill down his spine
He found himself before her house the threshold of the shrine
His courage flickered to a spark then glowed with sudden flame
He knocked he heard a welcome word she came his goddess came
Oh she was fair as any flower and huskily he spoke
I'm all the way from Klondike with a mighty heavy poke
I'm looking for a lassie one whose Christian name is Peg
Who sought a Klondike miner and who wrote it on an egg

The lassie gazed at him a space her cheeks grew rosy red
She gazed at him with tear-bright eyes then tenderly she said
Yes lonely Klondike miner it is true my name is Peg
It's also true I longed for you and wrote it on an egg
My heart went out to someone in that land of night and cold
But oh I fear that Yukon egg must have been mighty old
I waited long I hoped and feared you should have come before
I've been a wedded woman now for eighteen months or more
I'm sorry since you've come so far you ain't the one that wins
But won't you take a step inside I'll let you see the twins
**********

8.

MY FRIENDS

(Robert W. Service - Anita Kerr) «© '68 Tree Publishing, BMI »
The man above was a murderer the man below was a thief
And I lay there in the bunk between ailing beyond belief
A weary armful of skin and bone wasted with pain and grief

My feet were froze and the lifeless toes were purple and green and gray
The little flesh that clung to my bones you could punch it in holes like clay
The skin on my gums was a sullen black and slowly peeling away

I was sure enough in a direful fix and often I wondered why
They did not take the chance that was left and leave me alone to die
Or finish me off with a dose of dope so utterly lost was I

But no they brewed me the green-spruce tea and nursed me there like a child
And the homicide he was good to me and bathed my sores and smiled
And the thief he starved that I might be fed and his eyes were kind and mild

Yet they were woefully wicked men and often at night in pain
I heard the murderer speak of his deed and dream it over again
I heard the poor thief sorrowing for the dead self he had slain

I'll never forget that bitter dawn so evil askew and gray
When they wrapped me round in the skins of beasts and bore me to a sleigh
And we started out with the nearest post a hundred miles away

I'll never forget the trail they broke with its tense unuttered woe
And the crunch crunch crunch as their snowshoes sank through the crust of the hollow snow
And my breath would fail and every beat of my heart was like a blow

And often times I would die the death yet wake up to life anew
The sun would be all ablaze on the waste and the sky a blighting blue
And the tears would rise in my snow-blind eyes and furrow my cheeks like dew

And the camps we made when their strength outplayed and the day was pinched and wan
And oh the joy of the blessed halt and I did dread the dawn
And how I hated the weary men who rose and dragged me on

And oh how I begged to rest to rest the snow was so sweet a shroud
And oh how I cried when they urged me on cried and cursed them aloud
Yet on they strained all racked and pained and sorely their backs were bowed

And then it was all like a lurid dream and I prayed for a swift release
From the ruthless ones who would not leave me to die alone in peace
Till I waked up and I found myself at the post of the Mounted Police

And there was my friend the murderer and there was my friend the thief
With bracelets of steel around their wrists and wicked beyond belief
But when they come to God's judgment seat may I be allowed the brief
**********