The Ballad of Pious Pete

The Ballad of Pious Pete
“The North has got him.” — Yukonism.

I tried to refine that neighbor of mine, honest to God, I did.

I grieved for his fate, and early and late I watched over him like a kid.

I gave him excuse, I bore his abuse in every way that I could;

I swore to prevail; I camped on his trail; I plotted and planned for his good.

By day and by night I strove in men’s sight to gather him into the fold,

With precept and prayer, with hope and despair, in hunger and hardship and cold.

I followed him into Gehennas of sin, I sat where the sirens sit;

In the shade of the Pole, for the sake of his soul, I strove with the powers of the Pit.

I shadowed him down to the scrofulous town; I dragged him from dissolute brawls;

But I killed the galoot when he started to shoot electricity into my walls.

God knows what I did he should seek to be rid of one who would save him from shame.

God knows what I bore that night when he swore and bade me make tracks from his claim.

I started to tell of the horrors of hell, when sudden his eyes lit like coals;

And “Chuck it,” says he, “don’t persecute me with your cant and your saving of souls.”

I’ll swear I was mild as I’d be with a child, but he called me the son of a slut;

And, grabbing his gun with a leap and a run, he threatened my face with the butt.

So what could I do (I leave it to you)? With curses he harried me forth;

Then he was alone, and I was alone, and over us menaced the North.

Our cabins were near; I could see, I could hear; but between us there rippled the creek;

And all summer through, with a rancor that grew, he would pass me and never would speak.

Then a shuddery breath like the coming of Death crept down from the peaks far away;

The water was still; the twilight was chill; the sky was a tatter of gray.

Swift came the Big Cold, and opal and gold the lights of the witches arose;

The frost-tyrant clinched, and the valley was cinched by the stark and cadaverous snows.

The trees were like lace where the star-beams could chase, each leaf was a jewel agleam.

The soft white hush lapped the Northland and wrapped us round in a crystalline dream;

So still I could hear quite loud in my ear the swish of the pinions of time;

So bright I could see, as plain as could be, the wings of God’s angels ashine.

As I read in the Book I would oftentimes look to that cabin just over the creek.

Ah me, it was sad and evil and bad, two neighbors who never would speak!

I knew that full well like a devil in hell he was hatching out, early and late,

A system to bear through the frost-spangled air the warm, crimson waves of his hate.

I only could peer and shudder and fear — ’twas ever so ghastly and still;

But I knew over there in his lonely despair he was plotting me terrible ill.

I knew that he nursed a malice accurst, like the blast of a winnowing flame;

I pleaded aloud for a shield, for a shroud — Oh, God! then calamity came.

Mad! If I’m mad then you too are mad; but it’s all in the point of view.

If you’d looked at them things gallivantin’ on wings, all purple and green and blue;

If you’d noticed them twist, as they mounted and hissed like scorpions dim in the dark;

If you’d seen them rebound with a horrible sound, and spitefully spitting a spark;

If you’d watched it with dread, as it hissed by your bed, that thing with the feelers that crawls —

You’d have settled the brute that attempted to shoot electricity into your walls.

Oh, some they were blue, and they slithered right through; they were silent and squashy and round;

And some they were green; they were wriggly and lean; they writhed with so hateful a sound.

My blood seemed to freeze; I fell on my knees; my face was a white splash of dread.

Oh, the Green and the Blue, they were gruesome to view; but the worst of them all were the Red.

They came through the door, they came through the floor, they came through the moss-creviced logs.

They were savage and dire; they were whiskered with fire; they bickered like malamute dogs.

They ravined in rings like iniquitous things; they gulped down the Green and the Blue.

I crinkled with fear whene’er they drew near, and nearer and nearer they drew.

And then came the crown of Horror’s grim crown, the monster so loathsomely red.

Each eye was a pin that shot out and in, as, squidlike, it oozed to my bed;

So softly it crept with feelers that swept and quivered like fine copper wire;

Its belly was white with a sulphurous light, it jaws were a-drooling with fire.

It came and it came; I could breathe of its flame, but never a wink could I look.

I thrust in its maw the Fount of the Law; I fended it off with the Book.

I was weak — oh, so weak — but I thrilled at its shriek, as wildly it fled in the night;

And deathlike I lay till the dawn of the day. (Was ever so welcome the light?)

I loaded my gun at the rise of the sun; to his cabin so softly I slunk.

My neighbor was there in the frost-freighted air, all wrapped in a robe in his bunk.

It muffled his moans; it outlined his bones, as feebly he twisted about;

His gums were so black, and his lips seemed to crack, and his teeth all were loosening out.

’twas a death’s head that peered through the tangle of beard; ’twas a face I will never forget;

Sunk eyes full of woe, and they troubled me so with their pleadings and anguish, and yet

As I rested my gaze in a misty amaze on the scurvy-degenerate wreck,

I thought of the Things with the dragon-fly wings, then laid I my gun on his neck.

He gave out a cry that was faint as a sigh, like a perishing malamute,

And he says unto me, “I’m converted,” says he; “for Christ’s sake, Peter, don’t shoot!”

*   *    *    *    *

They’re taking me out with an escort about, and under a sergeant’s care;

I am humbled indeed, for I’m ’cuffed to a Swede that thinks he’s a millionaire.

But it’s all Gospel true what I’m telling to you — up there where the Shadow falls —

That I settled Sam Noot when he started to shoot electricity into my walls.