Robert W. Service

“ Then came I to a land I knew no man had ever seen,
A haggard land, forlornly spanned by mountains lank and lean;
The nitchies said ’twas full of dread, of smoke and fiery breath,
And no man dare put foot in there for fear of pain and death. ”

“ Day after day I made my way into that land unknown;
Night after night by camp-fire light I crouched in lonely thought;
Oh, gentle youth, this is the truth — I knew not what I sought.
“I rose at dawn; I wandered on. ’Tis somewhat fine and grand
To be alone and hold your own in God’s vast awesome land;
Come woe or weal, ’tis fine to feel a hundred miles between
The trails you dare and pathways where the feet of men have been.
“And so it fell on me a spell of wander-lust was cast.
The land was still and strange and chill, and cavernous and vast ”

“ And formed in rings and whispered things that made me half afraid.
“And strange though be, ’twas borne on me that land had lived of old,
And men had crept and slain and slept where now they toiled for gold ”