The Parson's Son



This is the song of the parson's son, as he squats in his shack alone,
On the wild, weird nights, when the Northern Lights
shoot up from the frozen zone,
And it's sixty below, and couched in the snow the hungry huskies moan:

"I'm one of the Arctic brotherhood, I'm an old-time pioneer.
I came with the first -- O God! how I've cursed
this Yukon -- but still I'm here.
I've sweated athirst in its summer heat, I've frozen and starved in its cold;
I've followed my dreams by its thousand streams,
I've toiled and moiled for its gold.

"Look at my eyes -- been snow-blind twice; look where my foot's half gone;
And that gruesome scar on my left cheek,
where the frost-fiend bit to the bone.
Each one a brand of this devil's land,
where I've played and I've lost the game,
A broken wreck with a craze for `hooch', and never a cent to my name.

"This mining is only a gamble; the worst is as good as the best;
I was in with the bunch and I might have come out right on top with the rest;
With Cormack, Ladue and Macdonald -- O God! but it's hell to think
Of the thousands and thousands I've squandered on cards and women and drink.

"In the early days we were just a few, and we hunted and fished around,