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��Robert W. Service
The well-known poet of the Yukon. Author of Songs of a Sour dough Ballads of a Cheechako The Trail of 98* (a novel), Rhymes of a Rolling Stone The Pretender (a novel), Rhymes of a Red Cross Man etc. Born in Lancashire, England, in 1876. Educated in Glasgow, in the Hillhead High School, and in the University of Glasgow. Came to Canada in his twenty-first year. Was a clerk in the Canadian Bank of Commerce at White Horse in the Yukon District, when most of the poems in his first book were written. See Canadian Poets for further particulars.
THE MAN FROM ATHABASKA
H, the wife she tried to tell me that twas nothing but
the thrumming Of a woodpecker a-rapping on the hollow of a tree; And she thought that I was fooling when I said it was
the drumming
Of the mustering of legions, and twas calling unto me ; Twas calling me to pull my freight and hop across the sea.
And a-mending of my fish-nets sure I started up in
wonder, For I heard a savage roaring and twas coming from
afar; Oh, the wife she tried to tell me that twas only summer
thunder, And she laughed a bit sarcastic when I told her it was
war; Twas the chariots of battle where the mighty armies
are.
Then down the lake came Half-breed Tom with russet
sail a-flying, And the word he said was war again, so what was
I to do? Oh, the dogs they took to howling, and the missis took
to crying,
As I flung my silver foxes in the little birch canoe;
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