To the Man of the High North

<SPAN name="startofbook"></SPAN> <h2>To the Man of the High North</h2> <p>My rhymes are rough, and often in my rhyming<br/> I've drifted, silver-sailed, on seas of dream,<br/> Hearing afar the bells of Elfland chiming,<br/> Seeing the groves of Arcadie agleam.<br/> <br/> I was the thrall of Beauty that rejoices<br/> From peak snow-diademed to regal star;<br/> Yet to mine aerie ever pierced the voices,<br/> The pregnant voices of the Things That Are.<br/> <br/> The Here, the Now, the vast Forlorn around us;<br/> The gold-delirium, the ferine strife;<br/> The lusts that lure us on, the hates that hound us;<br/> Our red rags in the patch-work quilt of Life.<br/> <br/> The nameless men who nameless rivers travel,<br/> And in strange valleys greet strange deaths alone;<br/> The grim, intrepid ones who would unravel<br/> The mysteries that shroud the Polar Zone.<br/> <br/> These will I sing, and if one of you linger<br/> Over my pages in the Long, Long Night,<br/> And on some lone line lay a calloused finger,<br/> Saying: "It's human-true&mdash;it hits me right";<br/> Then will I count this loving toil well spent;<br/> Then will I dream awhile&mdash;content, content.<br/></p> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />