THE OLD MEN

Wherefore be free of your harness betimes; but being

free be assured,

That he who hath not endured to the death, from his birth he hath never endured!

'T'

THE EXPLORER

(1898)

HERE'S no sense in going farther-it's the edge of cultivation,'

So they said, and I believed it-broke my land and sowed my crop

Built my barns and strung my fences in the little border station

Tucked away below the foothills where the trails run out and stop.

Till a voice, as bad as Conscience, rang interminable changes

On one everlasting Whisper day and night repeated

-so:

'Something hidden. Go and find it. Go and look behind the Ranges

'Something lost behind the Ranges. Lost and waiting for you. Go!'

So I went, worn out of patience; 'never told my nearest neighbours

Stole away with pack and ponies-left 'em drinking in the town;

THE EXPLORER

And the faith that moveth mountains didn't seem to help my labours

As I faced the sheer main-ranges, whipping up and leading down.

March by march I puzzled through 'em, turning flanks and dodging shoulders,

Hurried on in hope of water, headed back for lack of grass;

Till I camped above the tree-line-drifted snow and naked boulders

Felt free air astir to windward-knew I'd stumbled on the Pass.

"Thought to name it for the finder: but that night the Norther found me

Froze and killed the plains-bred ponies, so I called the camp Despair

(It's the Railway Gap to-day, though). Then my Whisper waked to hound me:

'Something lost behind the Ranges. Over yonder. Go you there!'

Then I knew, the while I doubted-knew His Hand was certain o'er me.

Still-it might be self-delusion-scores of better men had died

I could reach the township living, but . . He knows what terrors tore me

But I didn't

but I didn't. I went down the

other side.

A

Till the snow ran out in flowers, and the flowers turned to aloes,

And the aloes sprung to thickets and a brimming stream ran by;

But the thickets dwined to thorn-scrub, and the water drained to shallows

And I dropped again on desert, blasted earth, and blasting sky.

I remember lighting fires; I remember sitting by them; I remember seeing faces, hearing voices through the smoke;

I remember they were fancy-for I threw a stone to try 'em.

'Something lost behind the Ranges,' was the only word they spoke.

I remember going crazy. I remember that I knew it When I heard myself hallooing to the funny folk I saw. Very full of dreams that desert: but my two legs took me through it

And I used to watch 'em moving with the toes all black and raw.

But at last the country altered-White man's country past disputing

Rolling grass and open timber, with a hint of hills behind

There I found me food and water, and I lay a week recruiting,

Got my strength and lost my nightmares. Then I entered on my find.

THE EXPLORER

Thence I ran my first rough survey-chose my trees and blazed and ringed 'em

Week by week I pried and sampled-week by week my findings grew.

Saul he went to look for donkeys, and by God he found a kingdom!

But by God, who sent His Whisper, I had struck the worth of two!

Up along the hostile mountains, where the hair-poised snow-slide shivers

Down and through the big fat marshes that the virgin ore-bed stains,

Till I heard the mile-wide mutterings of unimagined rivers,

And beyond the nameless timber saw illimitable plains!

'Plotted sites of future cities, traced the easy grades between 'em;

Watched unharnessed rapids wasting fifty thousand head an hour;

Counted leagues of water-frontage through the axe-ripe woods that screen 'em

Saw the plant to feed a people-up and waiting for the power!

Well I know who'll take the credit-all the clever chaps that followed

Came, a dozen men together-never knew my desert fears;