Page:Canadian poems of the great war.djvu/211

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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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