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Service, Robert W. (Robert William), 1874-1958

"Ballads of a Cheechako"


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,
it 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.


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