Page:The Spell of the Yukon and Other Verses.djvu/90



To make me forget the brand of the dog, as I crouch in this hideous place; To make me forget once I kindled the light of love in a lady's face, Where even the squalid Siwash now holds me a black disgrace.

Oh, I have guarded my secret well! And who would dream as I speak In a tribal tongue like a rogue unhung, 'mid the ranch-house filth and reek, I could roll to bed with a Latin phrase and rise with a verse of Greek?

Yet I was a senior prizeman once, and the pride of a college eight; Called to the bar—my friends were true! but they could not keep me straight; Then came the divorce, and I went abroad and "died" on the River Plate.