WHITE NIGHT

WHITE  NIGHT

I see a distant past

And a house on the Petersburg Quai.

Daughter of a small landowner of the steppes,

You had come from Kursk to be a student.

You were beautiful, young men loved you.

Through that white night we two

Sat on your window-sill

Looking down from the skyscraper.

 

Like gas butterflies the street lamps,

Touched by the morning, trembled.

I talked to you softly

Like the sleeping distance.

 

And we, like Petersburg spreading away

Beyond the shoreless Neva,

Were held in timid fidelity

To a mystery.

 

Out there, far off, in the dense forest,

Of that white night of spring,

The nightingales filled the woods

With the thunder of their praisegiving.

 

The mad trilling rolled on,

The voice of the small insignificant bird

Roused a bustle of delight

In the depth of the spellbound forest.

 

Thither crept the night,

Hugging the fences like a barefoot tramp,

Trailing behind it, from the window-sill,

The wraith of that conversation.

Within the reach of its echo,

In fenced gardens,

The branches of apple and cherry

Put on white blossoms,

 

And white as ghosts, the trees

Crowded into the road

As though waving good-bye

To the white night which had seen so much.

                                 Boris Pasternak

 

NOTE

This poem is from a group of poems titled “ ZHIVAGO’S POEMS “ which appear at the end of the novel “ DOCTOR ZHIVAGO “ as translated from the Russian by Manya Harari and Max Hayward and published in 1991 for Everyman’s Library by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc.

THE  ABSENT-MINDED  BEGGAR

When you've shouted “ Rule Britannia,”

When you've sung “ God save the Queen,”

When you've finished killing Kruger with your mouth,

Will you kindly drop a shilling

In my little tambourine

For a gentleman in khaki ordered South?

He’s an absent-minded beggar,

And his weaknesses are great -

But we and Paul must take him as we find him -

He is out on active service,

Wiping something off a slate

And he’s left a lot of little things behind him!

Duke’s son - cook’s son - son of a hundred kings

(Fifty thousand horse and foot going to Table Bay!)

Each of ‘ em doing his country’s work

(And who’s to look after their things?)

Pass the hat for your credit’s sake,

And pay - pay - pay !

 

There are girls he married secret,

Asking no permission to,

For he knew he wouldn’t get it if he did.

There is gas and coals and vittles,

And the house-rent falling due,

And its more than rather likely there’s a kid.

There are girls he’s walked with casual.

They’ ll be sorry now he’s gone,

For an absent-minded beggar they will find him,

But it ain’t the time for sermons with the winter coming on

We must help the girl that Tommy’s left behind him!

Cook’s son - Duke’s son - son of a belted Earl

Son of a Lambeth publican - it’s all the same to-day !

Each of ‘ em doing his country’s work

(And who’s to look after the girl?)

Pass the hat for your credit’s sake,

And pay - pay - pay !

There are families by thousands,

Far too proud to beg or speak,

And they’ ll put their sticks and bedding up the spout,

And they’ ll live on half o’ nothing,

Paid ‘ em punctual once a week,

‘ Cause the man that earns the wage is ordered out.

He’s an absent-minded beggar,

But he heard his country call,

And his reg’ ment didn’t need to send to find him!

He chucked his job and joined it -

So the job before us all

Is to help the home that Tommy’s left behind him !

Duke’s job - cook’s job - gardener, baronet, groom.

Mews or palace or paper-shop, there’s someone gone away!

Each of ‘ em doing his country’s work

(And who’s to look after the room?)

Pass the hat for your credit’s sake,

And pay - pay - pay !

 

Let us manage so as, later,

We can look him in the face,

And tell him - what he’d very much prefer

That, while he saved the Empire,

His employer saved his place,

And his mates (that’s you and me) looked out for her.

He’s an absent-minded beggar

And he may forget it all,

But we do not want his kiddies to remind him

That we sent ‘ em to the workhouse

While their daddy hammered Paul,

So we’ ll help the homes that Tommy left behind him !

Cook’s home - Duke’s home - home of a millionaire,

(Fifty thousand horse and foot going to Table Bay !)

Each of ‘ em doing his country’s work

(And what have you got to spare?)

Pass the hat for your credit’s sake,

And pay - pay - pay!

 

                                  Rudyard Kipling

Note : This poem was written in 1899 to raise money for the families of English Soldiers fighting in the Boer War and is credited with raising  300,000 pounds (equal to 17 million pounds in today's money).

SAINT PATRICK'S DAY POEM

SAINT  PATRICK’S  DAY  POEM

Saint Patrick was a gentleman,

Who through strategy and stealth

Drove all the snakes from Ireland,

Here's a drink to his health!

But not too many drinks,

Lest we lose ourselves and then

Forget the good Saint Patrick,

And see them snakes again!

 

                                  Author Unknown

THE CREMATION OF SAM McGEE

THE  CREMATION  OF  SAM  McGEE

There are strange things done in the midnight sun

By the men who moil for gold;

The Arctic trails have their secret tales

That would make your blood run cold;

The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,

But the queerest they ever did see

Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge

I cremated Sam McGee.

 

Now Sam McGee was from Tennessee,

Where the cotton blooms and blows.

Why he left his home in the South to roam

‘ Round the Pole, God only knows.

He was always cold, but the land of gold

Seemed to hold him like a spell;

Though he’d often say in his homely way

That he’d “ sooner live in hell ”.

 

On a Christmas Day we were mushing our way

Over the Dawson trail.

Talk of your cold! through the parka’s fold

It stabbed like a driven nail.

If our eyes we’d close, then the lashes froze

Till sometimes we couldn’t see,

It wasn’t much fun, but the only one

To whimper was Sam McGee.

 

And that very night, as we lay packed tight

In our robes beneath the snow,

And the dogs were fed, and the stars o’erhead

Were dancing heel and toe,

He turned to me, and “ Cap,” says he,

“ I’ ll cash in this trip, I guess;

And if I do, I’m asking that you

Won’t refuse my last request.”

 

Well, he seemed so low that I couldn’t say no;

Then he says with a sort of moan,

“ It’s the cursed cold, and it’s got right hold

Till I’m chilled clean through to the bone.

Yet ‘ tain’t being dead - it’s my awful dread

Of the icy grave that pains;

So I want you to swear that, foul or fair,

You’ ll cremate my last remains.”

 

A pal’s last need is a thing to heed,

So I swore I would not fail;

And we started on at the streak of dawn;

But God! he looked ghastly pale.

He crouched on the sleigh, and he raved all day

Of his home in Tennessee;

And before nightfall a corpse was all

That was left of Sam McGee.

 

There wasn't a breath in that land of death,

And I hurried, horror-driven,

With a corpse half hid that I couldn’t get rid,

Because of a promise given;

It was lashed to the sleigh, and it seemed to say:

“ You may tax your brawn and brains,

But you promised true, and it’s up to you

To cremate those last remains.”

 

Now a promise made is a debt unpaid,

And the trail has its own stern code.

In the days to come, though my lips were dumb,

In my heart how I cursed that load.

In the long, long night, by the lone firelight,

While the huskies, round in a ring,

Howled out their woes to the homeless snows -

O God! how I loathed the thing.

 

And every day that quiet clay

Seemed to heavy and heavier grow;

And on I went, though the dogs were spent

And the grub was getting low;

The trail was bad, and I felt half mad,

But I swore I would not give in;

And I'd often sing to the hateful thing,

And it hearkened with a grin.

 

Till I came to the marge of Lake Lebarge,

And a derelict there lay;

It was jammed in the ice, but I saw in a trice

It was called the “ Alice May ”.

And I looked at it, and I thought a bit,

And I looked at my frozen chum;

Then “ Here,” said I, with a sudden cry,

“ Is my cre-ma-tor-eum.”

 

Some planks I tore from the cabin floor,

And I lit the boiler fire;

Some coal I found that was lying around,

And I heaped the fuel higher;

The flames just soared, and the furnace roared –

Such a blaze you seldom see;

And I burrowed a hole in the glowing coal,

And I stuffed in Sam McGee.

 

Then I made a hike, for I didn’ t like

To hear him sizzle so;

And the heavens scowled, and the huskies howled,

And the wind began to blow.

It was icy cold, but the hot sweat rolled

Down my cheeks, and I don't know why;

And the greasy smoke in an inky cloak

Went streaking down the sky.

 

I do not know how long in the snow

I wrestled with grisly fear;

But the stars came out and they danced about

Ere again I ventured near;

I was sick with dread, but I bravely said:

“ I’ ll just take a peep inside.

I guess he's cooked, and it's time I looked” . . .

Then the door I opened wide.

 

And there sat Sam, looking cool and calm,

In the heart of the furnace roar;

And he wore a smile you could see a mile,

And he said: “ Please close that door.

It’s fine in here, but I greatly fear

You’ ll let in the cold and storm -

Since I left Plumtree, down in Tennessee,

It’s the first time I've been warm.”

 

There are strange things done in the midnight sun

By the men who moil for gold;

The Arctic trails have their secret tales

That would make your blood run cold;

The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,

But the queerest they ever did see

Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge

I cremated Sam McGee.

 

                            Robert Service

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.

 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,

Its 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.

 

                                    Robert William Service

THE RHYME OF THE REMITTANCE MAN

THE  RHYME  OF  THE  REMITTANCE  MAN

There's a four-pronged buck a-swinging

In the shadow of my cabin,

And it roamed the velvet valley till to-day;

But I tracked it by the river,

And I trailed it in the cover,

And I killed it on the mountain miles away.

Now I've had my lazy supper,

And the level sun is gleaming

On the water where the silver salmon play;

And I light my little corn-cob,

And I linger, softly dreaming,

In the twilight, of a land that's far away.

 

Far away, so faint and far,

Is flaming London, fevered Paris,

That I fancy I have gained another star;

Far away the din and hurry,

Far away the sin and worry,

Far away - God knows they cannot be too far.

Gilded galley-slaves of Mammon -

How my purse-proud brothers taunt me!

I might have been as well-to-do as they

Had I clutched like them my chances,

Learned their wisdom, crushed my fancies,

Starved my soul and gone to business every day.

 

Well, the cherry bends with blossom

And the vivid grass is springing,

And the star-like lily nestles in the green;

And the frogs their joys are singing,

And my heart in tune is ringing,

And it doesn't matter what I might have been.

While above the scented pine-gloom,

Piling heights of golden glory,

The sun-god paints his canvas in the west,

I can couch me deep in clover,

I can listen to the story

Of the lazy, lapping water - it is best.

While the trout leaps in the river,

And the blue grouse thrills the cover,

And the frozen snow betrays the panther's track,

And the robin greets the dayspring

With the rapture of a lover,

I am happy, and I’ ll nevermore go back.

For I know I'd just be longing

For the little old log cabin,

With the morning-glory clinging to the door,

Till I loathed the city places,

Cursed the care on all the faces,

Turned my back on lazar London evermore.

 

So send me far from Lombard Street,

And write me down a failure;

Put a little in my purse and leave me free.

Say: “He turned from Fortune's offering

To follow up a pale lure,

He is one of us no longer - let him be.”

I am one of you no longer;

by the trails my feet have broken,

The dizzy peaks I've scaled, the camp-fire's glow;

By the lonely seas I've sailed in -

Yea, the final word is spoken,

I am signed and sealed to nature. Be it so.

 

                                    Robert  Service

THE CALL OF THE WILD

THE  CALL  OF  THE  WILD

Have you gazed on naked grandeur

Where there's nothing else to gaze on,

Set pieces and drop-curtain scenes galore,

Big mountains heaved to heaven,

Which the blinding sunsets blazon,

Black canyons where the rapids rip and roar?

Have you swept the visioned valley

With the green stream streaking through it,

Searched the Vastness for a something you have lost?

Have you strung your soul to silence?

Then for God's sake go and do it;

Hear the challenge, learn the lesson, pay the cost.

 

Have you wandered in the wilderness,

The sagebrush desolation,

The bunch-grass levels where the cattle graze?

Have you whistled bits of rag-time

At the end of all creation,

And learned to know the desert's little ways?

Have you camped upon the foothills,

Have you galloped o’er the ranges,

Have you roamed the arid sun-lands through and through?

Have you chummed up with the mesa?

Do you know its moods and changes?

Then listen to the Wild - it's calling you.

 

Have you known the Great White Silence,

Not a snow-gemmed twig aquiver?

(Eternal truths that shame our soothing lies.)

Have you broken trail on snowshoes?

Mushed your huskies up the river,

Dared the unknown, led the way, and clutched the prize?

Have you marked the map's void spaces,

Mingled with the mongrel races,

Felt the savage strength of brute in every thew?

And though grim as hell the worst is,

Can you round it off with curses?

Then hearken to the Wild - it's wanting you.

Have you suffered, starved and triumphed,

Groveled down, yet grasped at glory,

Grown bigger in the bigness of the whole?

“Done things” just for the doing,

Letting babblers tell the story,

Seeing through the nice veneer the naked soul?

Have you seen God in His splendors,

Heard the text that nature renders?

(You'll never hear it in the family pew.)

The simple things, the true things,

The silent men who do things -

Then listen to the Wild - it's calling you.

 

They have cradled you in custom,

they have primed you with their preaching,

They have soaked you in convention through and through;

They have put you in a showcase;

You’re a credit to their teaching -

But can't you hear the Wild? - it's calling you.

Let us probe the silent places,

Let us seek what luck betide us;

Let us journey to a lonely land I know.

There's a whisper on the night-wind,

There's a star agleam to guide us,

And the Wild is calling, calling . . . let us go.

 

                                                Robert  Service