Rhymes of a Roughneck Part 4

He climbs to the top of the highest hills To search out the vales afar; He bedrocks a hole on the deepest creeks He hitches his cart to a star.

He's ever the first in the far stampede As he chases the rainbow's blend, But it's not the need, and it's not the greed, It's the wanting to win in the end.

And whether he strives in the lofty range Or tries in the crowded mart, The longing to do what has never been done Is uppermost in his heart.

He tries to build where none other has built, Win the maid that none other has won, To find the gold that he never can hold, To finish what cannot be done.

He lives his life in a trying way And he scorns the things that are tame, If all seems lost, he still fights on, For ever he plays the game.

And the efforts he makes as he strives to win Are a credit to him and his breed, And the G.o.ds will count and give full amount And accept the act for the deed.

FOR

The dream of the white man ever goes out To the fight that can never be won, And ever he plans to do the things That they say can never be done.

It's seldom he values the things that are, What he craves he never may gain, But ever he tries, till the day he dies And then feels he has lived in vain.

THE NEW MASTER

As one who lays aside a task, where one has ruled alone, I lay aside the crown of h.e.l.l, and give to you my throne; As one who feels his race is run, whose day is of the past, I recognize your genius, and abdicate at last.

I go and leave you master, and I feel it's just as well, For Hades lacks its master, until you rule in h.e.l.l.

The world wags on and changes, old methods now seem weak, And the changes of a thousand years, of these I fain would speak.

I've raised and sponsored many names, that darken history's page, I've made them rulers of the world in many a by-gone age.

They all have shown a human turn, from Nero down to you, But now my life-long dream of a super fiend at last seems coming true.

I've watched you since the faintest spark blazed in your mother's womb, I've watched your hypocritic grief, beside your father's tomb; I know the tainted blood that flows thru your each and every vein That shows up in your withered arm, and feeds your fevered brain.

I saw it in your grandsire, where first it cropped out plain When German gold was squandered to slay the honest Dane.

I fed you dreams of empire, and dreams of l.u.s.t and greed And the age old l.u.s.t of conquest that taints all of your breed.

The strain that showed in Nero, cropped out alike in you, You killed your gentle mother, but not as Nero slew.

I gave you hate of Albion, for all the world will tell That could I kill that Anglo strain, I'd use the earth for h.e.l.l.

I loathe the Anglo-Saxon race, I hate their English speech, For where the Union Jack waves high, the Cross will ever reach.

Their ignorant millions till the soil, for they protect their own, I hate it for I've never had this ensign for mine own.

I taught you how to use G.o.d's church, I built the path you trod, I filled your mouth until you claimed, a pardners.h.i.+p with G.o.d.

I told you tales to tell to men, I coached you every hour Until an egomaniac ran wild, mad with a l.u.s.t for power.

I made an army for you then, the peer of all war lords, I smiled the night you went away to visit Norway fiords.

I knew your Bagdad railway schemes, I knew the Austrian claims, I knew that German gold would guide the mad a.s.sa.s.sin's aims.

I knew the schemes that you had planned, the one that nothing curbs, I envied your diplomacy that blamed it on the Serbs.

My brain ne'er hatched a finer scheme, your armies marking time And then the rape of Belgium, your premier man-sized crime.

And if one deals in h.e.l.lish schemes, that one must stamp your worth, You made a shambles of that land, you moved h.e.l.l up on earth.

The cries of mangled maidens, the mutilated child, The tears of butchered mothers, would drive an earth man wild, And thru it all proclaiming, you were the tool of G.o.d-- O pardner in this orgy, no one suspected fraud.

You butchered, maimed and pillaged, h.e.l.l never saw such sights As the Prussian Guard remembers, on those first Belgian nights.

O shades of maddened Nero and his early Christian fires, Could he have been in Belgium and have seen your funeral pyres!

Could he have seen your orgies he would have wept for shame But had he your fiendish cunning, he might have done the same.

But the hated Saxon balked you and the desperate fighting Frank Hurled back our super devils and took us on the flank.

Your inbred tainted offspring lost his chances at Verdun Where curtained steel just saved the world from the grip of brutal Hun.

But Wilhelm, you are crafty, you are mine own I ween Your fertile brain had brought to life the h.e.l.l-born submarine, You killed the unarmed merchantmen, you murdered in the dark, You sent the child and mother to feed your friend the shark.

The world grew sick with wonder, no voice was raised to laud And still you did it in your name, the name of you and G.o.d.

Where you have trod the world is dead, no sign of life or mirth, You beat me, Bill, you beat my h.e.l.l, with this of yours on earth.

You won h.e.l.l's admiration and of all of mine own folk When you paired off with the ghastly Turk, that was a master stroke.

And all the things you did before, just now seem weak and tame Since you launched that Dardanelles campaign of pillage, l.u.s.t and shame.

To fuss thus with my chosen race, my ally since time dates Proclaimed that Kultur and the Turk are well matched running mates.

And tho I've watched h.e.l.l's orgies, and stood by in fiendish glee, I quit you, Bill, these Turkish stunts are far too much for me.

When officers from Kultur's cla.s.s stand by and watch a Turk Just disembowel a mother, why, Bill, it makes me s.h.i.+rk.

It makes me shudder and I've watched the master fiends of h.e.l.l, But none of them have brains like you, none do their work so well.

When Turk and German flood with oil, then set a school ablaze And bayonet the babies, as they stumble thru the haze, I yield the crown to you, Dear Bill, my pupil pa.s.ses me You take the role of Master and your pupil I will be.

I've worked for h.e.l.l's best interests, my master now appears For when your name is mentioned, the imps break into cheers.

The gavel of the poor d.a.m.ned souls, that long has rung their knell, Is pa.s.sed to you, I abdicate and now you rule in h.e.l.l.

For years I've done the best I could, now I realize I'm thru, And in the future I'm content to live and learn from you.

Your earthly work is finished, soon in h.e.l.l you'll carve your name And I shudder when I realize that h.e.l.l won't be the same.

PROSPECTING

Looking for placer pangar, Loafing about in the hills, Getting your grub with a rifle, Taking your drink from rills.

Getting your bed from the spruce tree, Taking your course by your dreams, Just camping alone in the mountains, Siwas.h.i.+ng along the streams.

Locating the hind sight on Nature, Traveling alone and far, Thinking with no one to guide you, Digesting the things that are.

Back trailing the life that's past you, Peeping at what's in store, Pondering over life's mistakes, Wondering, how many more.

Dreaming alone of childhood days, Regretting some things that are past, Recalling lost opportunities, And chances too good to last.

Living your whole life over, Recalling the daily grind, Thanking your G.o.d that it's over, Glad that you've left it behind.

But still regretting your errors, Sad for some things you have done, Wis.h.i.+ng that you had coppered some plays As you count them one by one.

Now living a life, clean, decent, For man never sins alone, Getting a grip on your ego, Coming at last to your own.

You dream and you hunt all summer Till you notice a chill in the air, Then you think of your warm snug cabin And you feel that you'd rather be there.

Then you head over unblazed pa.s.ses Till at last you herd with your own, And though you located no pangar You are better for being alone.

THE WOMAN THAT YOU Pa.s.s BY