Page:The Spell of the Yukon and Other Verses.djvu/47



We sleep in the sleep of ages, the bleak, barbarian pines; The gray moss drapes us like sages, and closer we lock our lines, And deeper we clutch through the gelid gloom where never a sunbeam shines.

On the flanks of the storm-gored ridges are our black battalions massed; We surge in a host to the sullen coast, and we sing in the ocean blast; From empire of sea to empire of snow we grip our empire fast.

To the niggard lands were we driven, 'twixt desert and floes are we penned; To us was the Northland given, ours to stronghold and defend;