Spell Of The Yukon

I wanted the gold and I sought it I scrabbled and mucked like a slave
Was it famine or scurvy I fought it I hurled my youth into a grave
I wanted the gold and I got it came out with a fortune last fall
Yet somehow life's not what I thought it and somehow the gold isn't all

No there's the land have you seen it it's the cussedest land that I know
From the big dizzy mountains that screen it to the deep death-like valleys below
Some say God was tired when he made it some say it's a fine land to shun
Maybe but there's some that would trade it for no land owner and I'm one

You come to get rich that's a good reason you feel like an exile at first
You hate it like hell for a season and then you're worse than the worst
It grips you like some kinds of sinning it twists you from foe to a friend
It seems it's been since the beginning it seems it will be to the end

I've stood in some mighty mouthed-hollow that's plumb full of hush to the brim
I've watched the big husky sun wallow in crimson and gold and grow dim
Till the moon set the pearly peaks gleaming and the stars tumbled out neck and crop
And I thought that I surely was dreaming with the peace of the world piled on top

The summer no sweeter was ever the sunshiny woods all a thrill
The grayling a leap in the river the bighorn asleep on a hill
The strong life that never knows harness the wilds where the caribou call
The freshness the freedom the farness oh God how I'm stuck on it all

The winter the brightness that blinds you the white land locked tight as a drum
The cold fear that follows and finds you the silence that bludgeons you dumb
The snows that are older than history the woods where the weird shadows slant
The stillness the moonlight the myst'ry I'd bade them goodbye but I can't

There's a land where the mountains are nameless
And the rivers all run God knows where
There are lives that are erring and aimless and deaths that just hang by a hair
There are hardships that nobody reckons there are valleys unpeopled and still
There's a land oh how it beckons and beckons and I want to go back and I will

They're making my money diminish I'm sick of the taste of champagne
Thank God when I'm skinned to a finish I'll pike to the Yukon again
I'll fight and you bet it's no sham fight it's hell but I've been there before
And it's better than this by a damn sight so me for the Yukon once more

There's gold and its haunting and haunting it's luring me on as of old
Yet it isn't the gold that I'm wanting so much as just finding the gold
It's the great big broadland way up yonder it's the forest where silence has lease
It's the beauty that thrills me with wonder it's the stillness that fills me with peace