Tuesday, May 09, 2017
Poem: Blackie And The Bear
By: Donovan Baldwin
The nurse said, "Mr. Owens,
It's time you were in bed."
The old man gave a gentle smile
And gravely bowed his head.
As she helped him from the wheelchair,
She thought she heard him say,
"Tonight I'll ride with Blackie,
And he and Bear can play."
It was sad to see the weak old thing
Lose the little sense he'd kept.
So, as she put his things away,
The young girl quietly wept.
Then she found the crumpled paper,
Almost tossed it in the trash.
Except for "Corporal Owens",
That her eyes caught in a flash.
As she read the yellowed pages
The walls moved out and back.
She saw a Mountie on a killer's trail
Out on a Yukon track.
It was the tale of Corporal Owens
Upon the page she read,
A hero of the Yukon,
Dressed in Mountie red.
She began to wonder of the sights
The dim old eyes could see...
The mountains and the meadows,
Rivers wild and free.
It saddened her that this fine man
Raved like a madman there
In his mind gone out to play
With Blackie and some bear.
"He's reverted to his childhood,
Or made up a place to play."
Then she saw the picture
As she began to turn away.
It was a tall young Mountie
On a horse as dark as dark,
And beside them sat a huskie,
As if about to bark.
On the back she saw the writing,
"Rick, his dog and horse."
Then in the dark of that quiet room,
Things went from bad to worse.
The breathing of the old man
Rasped out in the night,
And the nurse reached for the button,
In momentary fright.
She then pulled back her hand,
As the man began to smile.
She knew that he had saddled up,
To ride a last long mile.
Yes, tonight there'll be a rider
In the freezing Yukon air,
On a horse that he calls Blackie,
Beside the huskie he named Bear.
More poetry by Donovan Baldwin at http://ravensong.mysite.com/index.html.
It's time you were in bed."
The old man gave a gentle smile
And gravely bowed his head.
As she helped him from the wheelchair,
She thought she heard him say,
"Tonight I'll ride with Blackie,
And he and Bear can play."
It was sad to see the weak old thing
Lose the little sense he'd kept.
So, as she put his things away,
The young girl quietly wept.
Then she found the crumpled paper,
Almost tossed it in the trash.
Except for "Corporal Owens",
That her eyes caught in a flash.
As she read the yellowed pages
The walls moved out and back.
She saw a Mountie on a killer's trail
Out on a Yukon track.
It was the tale of Corporal Owens
Upon the page she read,
A hero of the Yukon,
Dressed in Mountie red.
She began to wonder of the sights
The dim old eyes could see...
The mountains and the meadows,
Rivers wild and free.
It saddened her that this fine man
Raved like a madman there
In his mind gone out to play
With Blackie and some bear.
"He's reverted to his childhood,
Or made up a place to play."
Then she saw the picture
As she began to turn away.
It was a tall young Mountie
On a horse as dark as dark,
And beside them sat a huskie,
As if about to bark.
On the back she saw the writing,
"Rick, his dog and horse."
Then in the dark of that quiet room,
Things went from bad to worse.
The breathing of the old man
Rasped out in the night,
And the nurse reached for the button,
In momentary fright.
She then pulled back her hand,
As the man began to smile.
She knew that he had saddled up,
To ride a last long mile.
Yes, tonight there'll be a rider
In the freezing Yukon air,
On a horse that he calls Blackie,
Beside the huskie he named Bear.
More poetry by Donovan Baldwin at http://ravensong.mysite.com/index.html.
Labels: Canada, dog, horse, Mounties, nurse, poem, poem about a Mountie, poem about a nurse, poetry, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Yukon
Saturday, May 19, 2007
The Shooting of Dan McGrew
The Shooting of Dan McGrew
by Robert Service
A bunch of the boys were whooping it up in the Malamute saloon;
The kid that handles the music-box was hitting a jag-time tune;
Back of the bar, in a solo game, sat Dangerous Dan McGrew,
And watching his luck was his light-o'-love, the lady that's known as Lou.
When out of the night, which was fifty below, and into the din and the glare,
There stumbled a miner fresh from the creeks, dog-dirty, and loaded for bear.
He looked like a man with a foot in the grave
and scarcely the strength of a louse,
Yet he tilted a poke of dust on the bar,
and he called for drinks for the house.
There was none could place the stranger's face,
though we searched ourselves for a clue;
But we drank his health, and the last to drink was Dangerous Dan McGrew.
There's men that somehow just grip your eyes,
and hold them hard like a spell;
And such was he, and he looked to me like a man who had lived in hell;
With a face most hair, and the dreary stare of a dog whose day is done,
As he watered the green stuff in his glass, and the drops fell one by one.
Then I got to figgering who he was, and wondering what he'd do,
And I turned my head -- and there watching him
was the lady that's known as Lou.
His eyes went rubbering round the room, and he seemed in a kind of daze,
Till at last that old piano fell in the way of his wandering gaze.
The rag-time kid was having a drink; there was no one else on the stool,
So the stranger stumbles across the room, and flops down there like a fool.
In a buckskin shirt that was glazed with dirt he sat, and I saw him sway;
Then he clutched the keys with his talon hands
-- my God! but that man could play.
Were you ever out in the Great Alone, when the moon was awful clear,
And the icy mountains hemmed you in with a silence you most could HEAR;
With only the howl of a timber wolf, and you camped there in the cold,
A half-dead thing in a stark, dead world, clean mad for the muck called gold;
While high overhead, green, yellow and red,
the North Lights swept in bars? --
Then you've a haunch what the music meant . . .
hunger and night and the stars.
And hunger not of the belly kind, that's banished with bacon and beans,
But the gnawing hunger of lonely men for a home and all that it means;
For a fireside far from the cares that are, four walls and a roof above;
But oh! so cramful of cosy joy, and crowned with a woman's love --
A woman dearer than all the world, and true as Heaven is true --
(God! how ghastly she looks through her rouge, --
the lady that's known as Lou.)
Then on a sudden the music changed, so soft that you scarce could hear;
But you felt that your life had been looted clean
of all that it once held dear;
That someone had stolen the woman you loved; that her love was a devil's lie;
That your guts were gone, and the best for you was to crawl away and die.
'Twas the crowning cry of a heart's despair,
and it thrilled you through and through --
"I guess I'll make it a spread misere," said Dangerous Dan McGrew.
The music almost died away . . . then it burst like a pent-up flood;
And it seemed to say, "Repay, repay," and my eyes were blind with blood.
The thought came back of an ancient wrong, and it stung like a frozen lash,
And the lust awoke to kill, to kill . . .
then the music stopped with a crash,
And the stranger turned, and his eyes they burned in a most peculiar way;
In a buckskin shirt that was glazed with dirt he sat, and I saw him sway;
Then his lips went in in a kind of grin,
and he spoke, and his voice was calm,
And "Boys," says he, "you don't know me, and none of you care a damn;
But I want to state, and my words are straight,
and I'll bet my poke they're true,
That one of you is a hound of hell . . . and that one is Dan McGrew."
Then I ducked my head, and the lights went out,
and two guns blazed in the dark,
And a woman screamed, and the lights went up,
and two men lay stiff and stark.
Pitched on his head, and pumped full of lead, was Dangerous Dan McGrew,
While the man from the creeks lay clutched to the breast
of the lady that's known as Lou.
These are the simple facts of the case, and I guess I ought to know.
They say that the stranger was crazed with "hooch",
and I'm not denying it's so.
I'm not so wise as the lawyer guys, but strictly between us two --
The woman that kissed him and -- pinched his poke --
was the lady that's known as Lou.
********
More poems by Robert Service at http://ravensong.4t.com/robert_service/
by Robert Service
A bunch of the boys were whooping it up in the Malamute saloon;
The kid that handles the music-box was hitting a jag-time tune;
Back of the bar, in a solo game, sat Dangerous Dan McGrew,
And watching his luck was his light-o'-love, the lady that's known as Lou.
When out of the night, which was fifty below, and into the din and the glare,
There stumbled a miner fresh from the creeks, dog-dirty, and loaded for bear.
He looked like a man with a foot in the grave
and scarcely the strength of a louse,
Yet he tilted a poke of dust on the bar,
and he called for drinks for the house.
There was none could place the stranger's face,
though we searched ourselves for a clue;
But we drank his health, and the last to drink was Dangerous Dan McGrew.
There's men that somehow just grip your eyes,
and hold them hard like a spell;
And such was he, and he looked to me like a man who had lived in hell;
With a face most hair, and the dreary stare of a dog whose day is done,
As he watered the green stuff in his glass, and the drops fell one by one.
Then I got to figgering who he was, and wondering what he'd do,
And I turned my head -- and there watching him
was the lady that's known as Lou.
His eyes went rubbering round the room, and he seemed in a kind of daze,
Till at last that old piano fell in the way of his wandering gaze.
The rag-time kid was having a drink; there was no one else on the stool,
So the stranger stumbles across the room, and flops down there like a fool.
In a buckskin shirt that was glazed with dirt he sat, and I saw him sway;
Then he clutched the keys with his talon hands
-- my God! but that man could play.
Were you ever out in the Great Alone, when the moon was awful clear,
And the icy mountains hemmed you in with a silence you most could HEAR;
With only the howl of a timber wolf, and you camped there in the cold,
A half-dead thing in a stark, dead world, clean mad for the muck called gold;
While high overhead, green, yellow and red,
the North Lights swept in bars? --
Then you've a haunch what the music meant . . .
hunger and night and the stars.
And hunger not of the belly kind, that's banished with bacon and beans,
But the gnawing hunger of lonely men for a home and all that it means;
For a fireside far from the cares that are, four walls and a roof above;
But oh! so cramful of cosy joy, and crowned with a woman's love --
A woman dearer than all the world, and true as Heaven is true --
(God! how ghastly she looks through her rouge, --
the lady that's known as Lou.)
Then on a sudden the music changed, so soft that you scarce could hear;
But you felt that your life had been looted clean
of all that it once held dear;
That someone had stolen the woman you loved; that her love was a devil's lie;
That your guts were gone, and the best for you was to crawl away and die.
'Twas the crowning cry of a heart's despair,
and it thrilled you through and through --
"I guess I'll make it a spread misere," said Dangerous Dan McGrew.
The music almost died away . . . then it burst like a pent-up flood;
And it seemed to say, "Repay, repay," and my eyes were blind with blood.
The thought came back of an ancient wrong, and it stung like a frozen lash,
And the lust awoke to kill, to kill . . .
then the music stopped with a crash,
And the stranger turned, and his eyes they burned in a most peculiar way;
In a buckskin shirt that was glazed with dirt he sat, and I saw him sway;
Then his lips went in in a kind of grin,
and he spoke, and his voice was calm,
And "Boys," says he, "you don't know me, and none of you care a damn;
But I want to state, and my words are straight,
and I'll bet my poke they're true,
That one of you is a hound of hell . . . and that one is Dan McGrew."
Then I ducked my head, and the lights went out,
and two guns blazed in the dark,
And a woman screamed, and the lights went up,
and two men lay stiff and stark.
Pitched on his head, and pumped full of lead, was Dangerous Dan McGrew,
While the man from the creeks lay clutched to the breast
of the lady that's known as Lou.
These are the simple facts of the case, and I guess I ought to know.
They say that the stranger was crazed with "hooch",
and I'm not denying it's so.
I'm not so wise as the lawyer guys, but strictly between us two --
The woman that kissed him and -- pinched his poke --
was the lady that's known as Lou.
********
More poems by Robert Service at http://ravensong.4t.com/robert_service/
Labels: lady known as Lou, poem, poetry, Robert Service, The Shooting of Dan McGrew, Yukon
