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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=508876" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Trail Of Ninety-Eight</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=508876" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Gold! We leapt from our benches. Gold! We sprang from our stools.<br>Gold! We wheeled in the furrow, fired with the faith of fools.<br>Fearless, unfound, unfitted, far from the night and the cold,<br>Heard we the clarion summons, followed the master-lure--Gold!</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=508876" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Men from the sands of the Sunland; men from the woods of the West;<br>Men from the farms and the cities, into the Northland we pressed.<br>Graybeards and striplings and women, good men and bad men and bold,<br>Leaving our homes and our loved ones, crying exultantly--"Gold!"</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=508876" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Never was seen such an army, pitiful, futile, unfit;<br>Never was seen such a spirit, manifold courage and grit.<br>Never has been such a cohort under one banner unrolled<br>As surged to the ragged-edged Arctic, urged by the arch-tempter--Gold.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=508876" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">"Farewell!" we cried to our dearests; little we cared for their tears.<br>"Farewell!" we cried to the humdrum and the yoke of the hireling years;<br>Just like a pack of school-boys, and the big crowd cheered us good-bye.<br>Never were hearts so uplifted, never were hopes so high.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=508876" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The spectral shores flitted past us, and every whirl of the screw<br>Hurled us nearer to fortune, and ever we planned what we'd do--<br>Do with the gold when we got it--big, shiny nuggets like plums,<br>There in the sand of the river, gouging it out with our thumbs.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=508876" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">And one man wanted a castle, another a racing stud;<br>A third would cruise in a palace yacht like a red-necked prince of blood.<br>And so we dreamed and we vaunted, millionaires to a man,<br>Leaping to wealth in our visions long ere the trail began.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=508876" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><br>II</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=508876" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">We landed in wind-swept Skagway. We joined the weltering mass,<br>Clamoring over their outfits, waiting to climb the Pass.<br>We tightened our girths and our pack-straps; we linked on the Human Chain,<br>Struggling up to the summit, where every step was a pain.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=508876" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Gone was the joy of our faces, grim and haggard and pale;<br>The heedless mirth of the shipboard was changed to the care of the trail.<br>We flung ourselves in the struggle, packing our grub in relays,<br>Step by step to the summit in the bale of the winter days.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=508876" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Floundering deep in the sump-holes, stumbling out again;<br>Crying with cold and weakness, crazy with fear and pain.<br>Then from the depths of our travail, ere our spirits were broke,<br>Grim, tenacious and savage, the lust of the trail awoke.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=508876" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">"Klondike or bust!" rang the slogan; every man for his own.<br>Oh, how we flogged the horses, staggering skin and bone!<br>Oh, how we cursed their weakness, anguish they could not tell,<br>Breaking their hearts in our passion, lashing them on till they fell!</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=508876" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">For grub meant gold to our thinking, and all that could walk must pack;<br>The sheep for the shambles stumbled, each with a load on its back;<br>And even the swine were burdened, and grunted and squealed and rolled,<br>And men went mad in the moment, huskily clamoring "Gold!"</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=508876" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Oh, we were brutes and devils, goaded by lust and fear!<br>Our eyes were strained to the summit; the weaklings dropped to the rear,<br>Falling in heaps by the trail-side, heart-broken, limp and wan;<br>But the gaps closed up in an instant, and heedless the chain went on.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=508876" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Never will I forget it, there on the mountain face,<br>Antlike, men with their burdens, clinging in icy space;<br>Dogged, determined and dauntless, cruel and callous and cold,<br>Cursing, blaspheming, reviling, and ever that battle-cry--"Gold!"</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=508876" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Thus toiled we, the army of fortune, in hunger and hope and despair,<br>Till glacier, mountain and forest vanished, and, radiantly fair,<br>There at our feet lay Lake Bennett, and down to its welcome we ran:<br>The trail of the land was over, the trail of the water began.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=508876" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><br>III</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=508876" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">We built our boats and we launched them. Never has been such a fleet;<br>A packing-case for a bottom, a mackinaw for a sheet.<br>Shapeless, grotesque, lopsided, flimsy, makeshift and crude,<br>Each man after his fashion builded as best he could.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=508876" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Each man worked like a demon, as prow to rudder we raced;<br>The winds of the Wild cried "Hurry!" the voice of the waters, "Haste!"<br>We hated those driving before us; we dreaded those pressing behind;<br>We cursed the slow current that bore us; we prayed to the God of the wind.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=508876" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Spring! and the hillsides flourished, vivid in jewelled green;<br>Spring! and our hearts' blood nourished envy and hatred and spleen.<br>Little cared we for the Spring-birth; much cared we to get on--<br>Stake in the Great White Channel, stake ere the best be gone.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=508876" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The greed of the gold possessed us; pity and love were forgot;<br>Covetous visions obsessed us; brother with brother fought.<br>Partner with partner wrangled, each one claiming his due;<br>Wrangled and halved their outfits, sawing their boats in two.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=508876" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Thuswise we voyaged Lake Bennett, Tagish, then Windy Arm,<br>Sinister, savage and baleful, boding us hate and harm.<br>Many a scow was shattered there on that iron shore;<br>Many a heart was broken straining at sweep and oar.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=508876" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">We roused Lake Marsh with a chorus, we drifted many a mile;<br>There was the canyon before us--cave-like its dark defile;<br>The shores swept faster and faster; the river narrowed to wrath;<br>Waters that hissed disaster reared upright in our path.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=508876" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Beneath us the green tumult churning, above us the cavernous gloom;<br>Around us, swift twisting and turning, the black, sullen walls of a tomb.<br>We spun like a chip in a mill-race; our hearts hammered under the test;<br>Then--oh, the relief on each chill face!--we soared into sunlight and rest.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=508876" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Hand sought for hand on the instant. Cried we, "Our troubles are o'er!"<br>Then, like a rumble of thunder, heard we a canorous roar.<br>Leaping and boiling and seething, saw we a cauldron afume;<br>There was the rage of the rapids, there was the menace of doom.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=508876" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The river springs like a racer, sweeps through a gash in the rock;<br>Buts at the boulder-ribbed bottom, staggers and rears at the shock;<br>Leaps like a terrified monster, writhes in its fury and pain;<br>Then with the crash of a demon springs to the onset again.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=508876" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Dared we that ravening terror; heard we its din in our ears;<br>Called on the Gods of our fathers, juggled forlorn with our fears;<br>Sank to our waists in its fury, tossed to the sky like a fleece;<br>Then, when our dread was the greatest, crashed into safety and peace.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=508876" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">But what of the others that followed, losing their boats by the score?<br>Well could we see them and hear them, strung down that desolate shore.<br>What of the poor souls that perished? Little of them shall be said--<br>On to the Golden Valley, pause not to bury the dead.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=508876" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Then there were days of drifting, breezes soft as a sigh;<br>Night trailed her robe of jewels over the floor of the sky.<br>The moonlit stream was a python, silver, sinuous, vast,<br>That writhed on a shroud of velvet--well, it was done at last.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=508876" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">There were the tents of Dawson, there the scar of the slide;<br>Swiftly we poled o'er the shallows, swiftly leapt o'er the side.<br>Fires fringed the mouth of Bonanza; sunset gilded the dome;<br>The test of the trail was over--thank God, thank God, we were Home!</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><a href="http://poems.citatepedia.com/">poem</a> by <strong><a rel="author" href="http://authors.citatepedia.com/by.php?a=Robert+William+Service">Robert William Service</a></strong></div>