George Blackstone Field

“ Men from the college or from the farm, men of the
wandering breed,
Men of the 'Varsity's honored roll, men whom the future
will need;
Men who are young, and have just begun, soon with
the wilderness blend,
Men who are grey in the work to-day, men who are
nearing the end.
Men still living yet men who are dead, men who are
buried at home,
Living afresh in the loneliness, men who forever must
roam;
Men with a name that is not the same as once in the
days gone by,
Men who have come with a secret dumb, men who have
severed the tie. ”

“ Thro' my wand'ring vision range,
Things that whisper in the silence "You must go."
You who've never heard them calling,
Pleading voices in the night,—
You who've never known the challenge of the wild,
Cannot know the aching longing
For the freedom and the fight
When the loneliness is calling for her child.
There's a trail that lies a-waiting
In a dim and aged land.
There are monuments unbuilded in the gloom.
There are epitaphs unwritten,
Sleeping men who understand,
There's a challenge, there's a fight against the doom. ”

“ We had cursed that day more than e'er before, as
fellows in anger do,
And a storm that gathered above us broke, soaking us
through and through;
As we tramped it back to the lonely camp, it seemed
that place was banned,
And Brown with an awful curse had said "The devil
controls the land."
Then the thunder rolled, and the lightning flashed,
with its wondrous lurid glow,
And we who had challenged the wilderness wandered
the earth below.
It seemed that a message was from above, the
knowledge of endless things,
The power that quickens the soul of man, and models
the hearts of kings. ”

“ The way o'er the ancient clay,
Paying the price of a nation's need;
Comrades you leave by the way.
Yet in the future you see a land
Peopled and loved as a home;
Men who will listen and understand
Your work in the great alone. ”

“ THE BREED
(A Song of the Brand)
They who bear the brand of the lonely land
Must follow its lonely way
Through the long, long night, till the dawning light
Shall herald the break of day.
Cross the Arctic snows, where the north wind blows,
Or parched 'neath a burning sky,
To a call that was theirs since creation
They answer and know not why. ”

“ In the land of new beginnings, there's a question never asked,
There are reasons into which we never pry.
Silent men who seek our friendship with a page forever passed,
They have come, we never seek to ask them "Why?"
They have come, and why, no matter, they have come,
'tis all we ask,
Where the fences fade from view we take their hand.
Vessels marred within the moulding, men we turn
them out at last,
Hard and daring, sealed forever with the brand.
Some have drunk the dregs of pleasure, some have
stroked a winning eight—
Drifting derelicts, they seek the lonely way. ”

“ And rounding mighty canyons in the hazy early morn,
Don't quite forget the boys who did it all.
We know you bought a ticket, and you pay for all you get,
But don't you see the shadow near the pine,
Who looks at you appealingly, with face so white and set,
For duty died, your comfort on the line.
Just turn your eyes to Westward, to the bluff that shades the creek,
The sunset's glory setting overhead;
We found him in the bushes, he'd been frozen near a week,
His life, a pioneer, the man that's dead.
There's some who die of hunger, and there's others rave in pain ”

“ The reckless men who tame the wild, encamping around its throne;
We tried to think, but gave it up and waited the end alone.
We struggled when at first it came, the foe that had
dogged our trail;
But struggling turned to weariness; we knew that we
soon must fail.
The very atmosphere seemed full of death in its every form,
And one by one the fellows to Eternity's rest were borne.
A teamster started back for help; we wondered it never came.
Found frozen in the wilderness, his horses had fallen lame.
The wolves or devil's imps from hell had scented him
in his plight ”

“ Changed the silence for the glitter
Of a city's empty glow.
Tried to crush my soul of things that never die.
Things that were and ever shall be,
Things that never, never change.
Things that men I see around can never know. ”

“ Then you grit your teeth and bluff the wild again,
Till you see the lights a-gleaming
In the coulee thro' the storm,
And you shout a mocking triumph thro' your pain.
There's an awful, awful stillness,
There's a something, God knows what.
There's a recklessness that, born, can never die.
There's a voice you try to silence
Of the thing that once you sought,
There's a longing in your heart you can't deny. ”

“ In honor, amid my gloom,
Then will I fight as a she-wolf fights,
To guard them against the doom;
For you were my children before them,
Your dreams shall be theirs again,
And I, whom you followed, will cherish
The men who shall breathe your name. ”

“ MEN OF THE LINE
Sons of the survey, sons of the wild, sons of the
prodigal son,
Chums of the lonely and ancient pine, standing
eternally dumb;
Knowing the cost of the words "To fail," staking the
way in the gloom,
Dreaming the dream in the dim unseen, daring its
ravening doom,
Men who are known by the great alone, men who are
leading the way,
Fighting the fight in the long, lone night, loving the
lure of the fray ”

“ One by one ye knew them once—'twas yesterday.
We are men of many nations, but what matter blood or creed
When you're packing o'er a wilderness of snow?
Brothers e'en as God has made us, wanderers, 'twas so decreed,
Brothers, builders, in the lands of long ago.
Some have spent the long vacation, some have come to
ne'er return;
Saint and sinner, fool and felon, rich or poor,
Seek the world's deserted places and the lessons there
to learn,
In the land of new beginnings evermore. ”

“ The player's skill to test;
We often curse the deal that made
Us wand'rers in the land,
But not a man who's known the game
Would ever change his hand.
So spurn ye not the polished stone
For one of mossy coat,
For some must roll the wilderness,
And some must roll afloat;
And some are making of the moss—
Your harvest p'raps was sown
By he you brand for ever as
A useless rolling stone.
MY SENTINELS
(The Song of the Wild)
Rugged and dark are my paths to fame,
Shadowed by men who have gone,
Buried, but rising to point the way
To he who shall seek the dawn ”

“ Hard as hell, yet sweet as heaven, cursed by those who
love it best,
Grim, unyielding in its law, the law of man,
Some have said good-bye forever, shrinking e'en before
the test,
Others stay and learn to love and understand.
We are parted for a season—in that season one has gone
For to sit beneath the upper chamber's dome.
Why he came is still his secret, but the man in him
was born
As he sought and trailed with us the great alone.
He's the goal of seeking mammas, he's the idol of the fair,
With his past transgressions buried out of sight. ”

“ Leaving the silence and anguish, the moon that was shining bright.
Found by an Indian trapper, cared for by hearts that were true,
Wresting us far from the shadow, nursed by the squaws
of the Sioux.
Sitting to-day in a smoker, viewing the oldest survey,
Don't feel inclined to discredit things I have tried to portray.
God only knows of the hardness, blizzards that robbed
us of sight,
Stumbling on with an effort, turning the day into night.
This is the story of fellows lying afar in the gloom,
The fellows who never faltered, e'en on the edge of the doom. ”

“ Or throwing out the challenge, on
A crystal Arctic morn.
You'll find us running surveys on
Creation's ragged end,
Or camping in the desert, where
The past and future blend;
We're busy building railways on
The map's deserted spot,
Or staking out an empire in
The land that God forgot. ”

“ The train is running swiftly on without a jolt or jar,
D'you ever think of those who made the line?
While rushing o'er the prairies, fresh with towns all newly born,
The bush, the bridge across the Torrent's fall ”

“ Her anger for he who quails.
'Tis the mother call that lures you on,
As wanderers still you roam,
The mother call to the pioneer,
Inanimate, sad, alone;
'Tis the mother call, and you follow
The men who have wrought and gone ”