On Fond-du-lac's shore I'm hearin' once more
       that blessed old grammyfone play.
     The summer's all gone, an' I'm still livin' on
       in the same old haphazardous way.
     Oh, I cut out the booze, an' with muscles an' thews
       I corralled all the coin to go back;
     But it wasn't to be:  he'd a mother, you see,
       so I — SLIPPED IT TO FOUR-FINGER JACK.

     Have ever you heard of the Land of Beyond,
      That dreams at the gates of the day?
     Alluring it lies at the skirts of the skies,
      And ever so far away;
     Alluring it calls:  O ye the yoke galls,
      And ye of the trail overfond,
     With saddle and pack, by paddle and track,
      Let's go to the Land of Beyond!

     Have ever you stood where the silences brood,
      And vast the horizons begin,
     At the dawn of the day to behold far away
      The goal you would strive for and win?
     Yet ah! in the night when you gain to the height,
      With the vast pool of heaven star-spawned,
     Afar and agleam, like a valley of dream,
      Still mocks you a Land of Beyond.

     Thank God! there is always a Land of Beyond
      For us who are true to the trail;
     A vision to seek, a beckoning peak,
      A farness that never will fail;
     A pride in our soul that mocks at a goal,
      A manhood that irks at a bond,
     And try how we will, unattainable still,
      Behold it, our Land of Beyond!

       I

     Flat as a drum-head stretch the haggard snows;
     The mighty skies are palisades of light;
     The stars are blurred; the silence grows and grows;
     Vaster and vaster vaults the icy night.
     Here in my sleeping-bag I cower and pray:
     "Silence and night, have pity! stoop and slay."

     I have not slept for many, many days.
     I close my eyes with weariness — that's all.
     I still have strength to feed the drift-wood blaze,
     That flickers weirdly on the icy wall.
     I still have strength to pray:  "God rest her soul,
     Here in the awful shadow of the Pole."

     There in the cabin's alcove low she lies,
     Still candles gleaming at her head and feet;
     All snow-drop white, ash-cold, with closed eyes,
     Lips smiling, hands at rest — O God, how sweet!
     How all unutterably sweet she seems. . . .
     Not dead, not dead indeed — she dreams, she dreams.

       II

     "Sunshine", I called her, and she brought, I vow,
     God's blessed sunshine to this life of mine.
     I was a rover, of the breed who plough
     Life's furrow in a far-flung, lonely line;
     The wilderness my home, my fortune cast
     In a wild land of dearth, barbaric, vast.

     When did I see her first?  Long had I lain
     Groping my way to life through fevered gloom.
     Sudden the cloud