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nearly done:
He passes, pauses, then comes slowly back
And listens thereā ā€”an audience of one.

She singsā ā€”her golden voice is passion-fraught
As when she charmed a thousand eager ears;
He listens trembling, and she knows it not,
And down his hollow cheeks roll bitter tears.

She ceases and is still, as if to pray;
There is no sound, the stars are all alightā ā€”
Only a wretch who stumbles on his way,
Only a vagrant sobbing in the night.

The Rhyme of the Remittance Man

Thereā€™s a four-pronged buck a-swinging in the shadow of my cabin,
And it roamed the velvet valley till today;
But I tracked it by the river, and I trailed it in the cover,
And I killed it on the mountain miles away.
Now Iā€™ve had my lazy supper, and the level sun is gleaming
On the water where the silver salmon play;
And I light my little corncob, and I linger softly dreaming,
In the twilight, of a land thatā€™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 awayā ā€”God knows they cannot be too far.
Gilded galley-slaves of Mammonā ā€”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 starlike lily nestles in the green;
And the frogs their joys are singing, and my heart in tune is ringing,
And it doesnā€™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 waterā ā€”it is best.
While the trout leaps in the river, and the blue grouse thrills the cover,
And the frozen snow betrays the pantherā€™s track,
And the robin greets the dayspring with the rapture of a lover,
I am happy, and Iā€™ll nevermore go back.
For I know Iā€™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: ā€œHe turned from Fortuneā€™s offering to follow up a pale lure,
He is one of us no longerā ā€”let him be.ā€
I am one of you no longer: by the trails my feet have broken,
The dizzy peaks Iā€™ve scaled, the campfireā€™s glow,
By the lonely seas Iā€™ve sailed inā ā€”yea, the final word is spoken,
I am signed and sealed to nature. Be it so.

The Low-Down White

This is the payday up at the mines, when the bearded brutes come down;
Thereā€™s money to burn in the streets tonight, so Iā€™ve sent my klooch to town,
With a haggard face and a ribband of red entwined in her hair of brown.

And I know at the dawn sheā€™ll come reeling home with the bottles, one, two, three;
One for herself to drown her shame, and two big bottles for me,
To make me forget the thing I am and the man I used to be.

To make me forget the brand of the dog, as I crouch in this hideous place;
To make me forget once I kindled the light of love in a ladyā€™s face,
Where even the squalid Siwash now holds me a black disgrace.

Oh, I have guarded my secret well! And who would dream as I speak
In a tribal tongue like a rogue unhung, ā€™mid the ranch-house filth and reek,
I could roll to bed with a Latin phrase, and rise with a verse of Greek?

Yet I was a senior prizeman once, and the pride of a college eight;
Called to the barā ā€”my friends were true! but they could not keep me straight;
Then came the divorce, and I went abroad and ā€œdiedā€ on the River Plate.

But Iā€™m not dead yet; though with half a lung there isnā€™t time to spare,
And I hope that the year will see me out, and, thank God, no one will careā ā€”
Save maybe the little slim Siwash girl with the rose of shame in her hair.

She will come with the dawn, and the dawn is near; I can see its evil glow,
Like a corpse-light seen through a frosty pane in a night of want and woe;
And yonder she comes, by the bleak bull-pines, swift staggering through the snow.

The Little Old Log Cabin

When a man gits on his uppers in a hardpan sort of town,
Anā€™ he ainā€™t got nothinā€™ cominā€™, anā€™ he canā€™t afford ter eat,
Anā€™ heā€™s in a fix fer lodginā€™, anā€™ he wanders up anā€™ down,
Anā€™ youā€™d fancy heā€™d been boozinā€™, heā€™s so locoed ā€™bout the feet;
When heā€™s feelinā€™ sneakinā€™ sorry, anā€™ his belt is hanginā€™ slack,
Anā€™ his face is peaked anā€™ grey-like, anā€™ his heart gits down anā€™ whines,
Then heā€™s apt ter git a-thinkinā€™ anā€™ a-wishinā€™ he was back
In the little olā€™ log cabin in the shadder of the pines.

When heā€™s on the blazinā€™ desert, anā€™ his canteenā€™s sprung a leak,
Anā€™ heā€™s all alone anā€™ crazy, anā€™ heā€™s crawlinā€™ like a snail,
Anā€™ his tongueā€™s so black anā€™ swollen that it hurts him fer to speak,
Anā€™ he gouges down fer water, anā€™ the ravenā€™s on his trail;
When heā€™s done with care and cursinā€™, anā€™ he feels more like to cry,
Anā€™ he sees olā€™ Death a-grinninā€™, anā€™ he thinks upon his crimes,
Then heā€™s like ter hevā€™ a vision, as he settles down ter die,
Of the little olā€™ log cabin anā€™ the roses anā€™ the vines.

Oh, the little olā€™ log cabin, itā€™s a solemn shininā€™ mark
When a feller gits ter sinninā€™, anā€™ a-goinā€™ ter the wall,
Anā€™ folks donā€™t understand him, anā€™ heā€™s gropinā€™ in the dark,
Anā€™

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