To the Man of the High North
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To the Man of the High North
[edit]My rhymes are rough, and often in my rhyming I’ve drifted, silver-sailed, on seas of dream,Hearing afar the bells of Elfland chiming, Seeing the groves of Arcadie agleam.I was the thrall of Beauty that rejoices From peak snow-diademed to regal star;Yet to mine aerie ever pierced the voices, The pregnant voices of the Things That Are.
The Here, the Now, the vast Forlorn around us; The gold-delirium, the ferine strife;The lusts that lure us on, the hates that hound us; Our red rags in the patch-work quilt of Life.
The nameless men who nameless rivers travel, And in strange valleys greet strange deaths alone;The grim, intrepid ones who would unravel The mysteries that shroud the Polar Zone.
These will I sing, and if one of you linger Over my pages in the Long, Long Night,And on some lone line lay a calloused finger, Saying: “It’s human-true — it hits me right”Then will I count this loving toil well spent;Then will I dream awhile — content, content.
{{PD-US|1958))