Gold Fever

Lewes River  Charles Edwin Fripp

Men of the High North

by Robert W. Service 

Men of the High North, the wild sky is blazing; 

Islands of opal float on silver seas; 

Swift splendors kindle, barbaric, amazing; 

Pale ports of amber, golden argosies. 

Ringed all around us the proud peaks are glowing; 

Fierce chiefs in council, their wigwam the sky; 

Far, far below us the big Yukon flowing, 

Like threaded quicksilver, gleams to the eye. 

Men of the High North, you who have known it; 

You in whose hearts its splendors have abode; 

Can you renounce it, can you disown it? 

Can you forget it, its glory and its goad? 

Where is the hardship, where is the pain of it?

Lost in the limbo of things you've forgot; 

Only remain the guerdon and gain of it; 

Zest of the foray, and God, how you fought! 

You who have made good, you foreign faring; 

You money magic to far lands has whirled; 

Can you forget those days of vast daring, 

There with your soul on the Top o' the World? 

Nights when no peril could keep you awake on 

Spruce boughs you spread for your couch in the snow; 

Taste all your feasts like the beans and the bacon 

Fried at the camp-fire at forty below? 

Can you remember your huskies all going, 

Barking with joy and their brushes in air; 

You in your parka, glad-eyed and glowing, 

Monarch, your subjects the wolf and the bear? 

Monarch, your kingdom unravisht and gleaming; 

Mountains your throne, and a river your car; 

Crash of a bull moose to rouse you from dreaming; 

Forest your couch, and your candle a star. 

You who this faint day the High North is luring 

Unto her vastness, taintlessly sweet; 

You who are steel-braced, straight-lipped, enduring, 

Dreadless in danger and dire in defeat: 

Honor the High North ever and ever, 

Whether she crown you, or whether she slay; 

Suffer her fury, cherish and love her-- 

He who would rule he must learn to obey. 

Men of the High North, fierce mountains love you; 

Proud rivers leap when you ride on their breast. 

See, the austere sky, pensive above you, 

Dons all her jewels to smile on your rest. 

Children of Freedom, scornful of frontiers, 

We who are weaklings honor your worth. 

 Lords of the wilderness, Princes of Pioneers, 

Let's have a rouse that will ring round the earth.

Decoration Day

A British Spitfire Downs an Enemy Plane  T. Cowill

And Irish Airman Foresees His Death

by William Butler Yeats

I know that I shall meet my fate

Somewhere among the clouds above;

Those that I fight I do not hate,

Those that I guard I do not love;

My country is Kiltartan Cross,

My countrymen Kiltartan's poor,

No likely end could bring them loss

Or leave them happier than before.

Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,

Nor public men, nor cheering crowds,

A lonely impulse of delight

Drove to this tumult in the clouds;

I balanced all, brought all to mind,

The years to come seemed waste of breath,

A waste of breath the years behind

In balance with this life, this death.

April 15, 1865: President Lincoln's Assassination

The Death of Lincoln  Alonzo Chappel

O Captain my Captain!

by  Walt Whitman

O Captain my Captain! our fearful trip is done,

The ship has weathered every rack, the prize we sought is won,

The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,

While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;

But O heart! heart! heart!

O the bleeding drops of red,

Where on the deck my Captain lies,

Fallen cold and dead.

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;

Rise up--for you the flag is flung for you the bugle trills,

For you bouquets and ribboned wreaths for you the shores a-crowding,

For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;

Here Captain! dear father!

This arm beneath your head!

It is some dream that on the deck,

You've fallen cold and dead.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;

My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will;

The ship is anchored safe and sound, its voyage closed and done;

From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won;

Exult O shores, and ring O bells!

But I, with mournful tread,

Walk the deck my Captain lies,

Fallen cold and dead.

The USS Constitution

Old Ironsides  Charles Vickery

Old Ironsides

by Oliver Wendell Holmes

Ay, tear her tattered ensign down!

Long has it waved on high,

And many an eye has danced to see

That banner in the sky;

Beneath it rung the battle shout,

And burst the cannon's roar;--

The meteor of the ocean air

Shall sweep the clouds no more!

Her deck, once red with heroes' blood,

Where knelt the vanquished foe,

When winds were hurrying o'er the floodA

nd waves were white below,

No more shall feel the victor's tread,

Or know the conquered knee;--

The harpies of the shore shall pluck

The eagle of the sea!

Oh, better that her shattered hulk

Should sink beneath the wave;

Her thunders shook the mighty deep,

And there should be her grave;

Nail to the mast her holy flag,

Set every threadbare sail,

And give her to the God of storms,--

The lightning of the gale!

A Martial Attitude

Napoleon Crossing the Alps  Jacques-Louis David

from Waverly 

by Sir Walter Scott

His heart was all on honour bent,

He could not stoop to love;

No lady in the land had power 

His frozen heart to move.