Louis Untermeyer, ed. (1885–1977). Modern American Poetry. 1919.
Henry Herbert Knibbs18741945The Trail-Makers
N
Sullen in the grip of night and smiling in the day:
Nunivak and Akutan, with Nome against the highlands,
On we drove with plated prow agleam with frozen spray.
Quarreled, fought, and then forgot the taunt, the blow, the jeers;
Named a friend and clasped a hand—a compact sealed, attested;
Shared tobacco, yarns, and drink, and planned surpassing years.
Out across the blinding white and through the stabbing cold,
Past tents along the tundra over faces blotched and hollowed;
Toothless mouths that babbled foolish songs of hidden gold.
Fools, with thews of iron, blundered on and won the fight;
Weaklings drifted homeward; else they tarried—worse than dying—
With the painted lips and wastrels on the edges of the night.
Flowers decked the barren with its timber scant and low;
All along the river-trail were many voices calling,
And e’en the whimpering Malemutes they heard—and whined to go.
Firelight like a spray of blood on faces lean and brown;
Shifting shadows of the pines across our loaded sledges,
And far behind the fading trail, the lights and lures of town.
Wind and wolf they found the bones that blazed out lonely trails.…
Where a dozen shacks were set, to-day there blooms a city;
Now where once was empty blue, there pass a thousand sails.
Nameless, lost to lips of men who followed, gleaning fame
From the soundless triumph of adventurers who cherished
Naught above the glory of a chance to play the game.
Rusted out as useless ere our worth was tried and known.
But the Hand that made us caught us up and hewed a nation
From the frozen fastness that so long was His alone.
……
Loud we sang adventuring and lustily we jested;
Quarreled, fought, and then forgot the taunt, the blow, the jeers;
Sinned and slaved and vanished—we, the giant-men who wrested
Truth from out a dream wherein we planned surpassing years.