The Spell of the Yukon

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, deathlike 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 as would trade it
For no land on earth -- and I'm one

You come to get rich (damned good reason);
You feel like an exile at first;
You hate it like hell for a season
And then you are 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've thought that I surely was dreaming
With the peace o' the world piled on top

The summer -- no sweeter was ever;
The sunshiny woods all athrill;
The grayling aleap in the river
The bighorn asleep on the hill
The strong life that never knows harness;
The wilds where the caribou call;
The freshness, the freedom, the farness --
O 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 mystery
I've bade 'em good-by -- 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, 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 damsite --
So me for the Yukon once more

There's gold, and it's 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, broad land 'way up yonder
It's the forests where silence has lease;
It's the beauty that thrills me with wonder
It's the stillness that fills me with peace