[5499] in Central_America
New quotes for Thu Jun 30
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Central America)
Thu Jun 30 03:15:27 1994
Date: Thu, 30 Jun 1994 03:14:57 -0400
From: Central America <root@charon.MIT.EDU>
To: ca-mtg@charon.MIT.EDU
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jcb (Jeff Bigler):
THE BALLAD OF BLASPHEMOUS BILL
Robert W. Service
I took a contract to bury the body of blasphemous Bill McKie
Wherever, whenever, and whatsoever the manner of death he die
Or whether he die in the light of day, or under the peak-faced moon,
In cabin or dance-hall, camp or dive, mucklucks or patent shoon,
On velvet tundra or virgin peak, by glacier, drift, or draw,
In muskeg hollow or canyon gloom; by avalanche, fang, or claw,
By battle, murder, or sudden wealth; by pestilence, hooch, or lead,
I swore on the book I would travel and look 'til I found my tombless dead.
For Bill was a dainty kind of cuss, and his mind was mighty sot
On a dinky patch with flowers and grass in a civilized boneyard lot
And where he died or how he died, it didn't matter a damn
So long as he had a grave with frills and a tombstone epigram
So I promised him, and he paid the price in good cheechako coin
(Which the same I blowed that very night down in the tenderloin)
Then I painted a three-foot slab of pine, "Here Lies Poor Bill McKie"
And I hung it up on my cabin wall, and I waited for Bill to die.
Years passed away, and at last one day came a squaw with a story strange
Of a long-deserted line of traps way back of the Bighorn range
Of a little cabin by the Great Divide, with a white man stiff and still
Lying there by his lonesome self, and I figured it must be Bill.
So I thought of the contract I'd made with him, and I took down from the shelf
The swell black box with the silver plate he'd picked out for himself
Then I filled it up with grub and hooch, and slung it on my sleigh,
And I harnessed up my team of dogs, and was off at the dawn of day.
Do you know what it's like in the Yukon wild when it's sixty-nine below
When the ice-worms wriggle their purple heads through the crust of the
pale blue snow?
When the pine trees crack like little guns in the silence of the wood
And the icicles hang down like tusks under the parka hood
When the stove-pipe smoke breaks sudden off, and the sky is weirdly lit,
And the careless feel of a bit of steel burns like a red-hot spit
When the mercury is a frozen ball, and the frost-fiend stalks to kill
Well, it was just like that, that day when I set out to look for Bill.
Oh, the awful hush that seemed to crush me down on every hand
As I blundered blind with a trail to find through that blank and bitter land
Half dazed, half crazed in the winter wild, with its grim heartbreaking woes
And the ruthless strife for a grip on life that only the sourdough knows
North by the compass, north I pressed, river and peak and plain
Passed like a dream I slept to lose, and waked to dream again
River and plain and mighty peak, and who could stand unawed
As their summits blazed, he could stand undazed at the foot of the throne
of God
North, aye north, through a land accursed, shunned by the scouring brutes
And all I heard was my own harsh word, and the whine of the malamutes
Til at last I came to a cabin squat, built in the side of a hill,
And I burst in the door, and there on the floor, frozen to death, lay Bill.
Ice -- white ice like a winding-sheet, sheathing each smoke-grimed wall,
Ice on the stove-pipe -- ice on the bed -- ice gleaming over all --
Sparkling ice on the dead man's chest -- glittering ice in his hair --
Ice on his fingers -- ice in his heart -- ice in his glassy stare
Hard as a log and trussed like a frog with his arms and legs outspread
I gazed at the coffin I'd brought for him, and I gazed at the gruesome dead,
And at last I spoke: "Bill liked his joke, but still, gol-darn his eyes,
A man had ought to consider his mates in the way he goes and dies!"
Have you ever stood in an arctic hut in the shadow of the pole
With a little coffin six by three and a grief you can't control?
Have you ever looked at a frozen corpse that looks at you with a grin
And that seems to say, "You may try all day but you'll never jam me in."
Well, I'm not a man of the quitting kind, but I never felt so blue
As I sat there gazing at that stiff and studying what I'd do
Then I rose and I kicked off the husky dogs that were nosing round about,
And I lit a roaring fire in the stove, and I started to thaw Bill out.
Well, I thawed and thawed for thirteen days, but it didn't do no good,
His arms and legs stuck out like pegs as if they was made of wood
Til at last I said, "Well, it ain't no use; he's froze too hard to thaw
He's obstinate and he won't lie straight, so I guess I'll have to -- saw.
So I sawed off poor Bill's arms and legs, and I laid him neat and straight
In the little coffin he'd picked for himself with the dinky silver plate
And I came nigh near to shedding a tear as I nailed him safely down
Then I stowed him away in my Yukon sleigh, and I headed back to town.
So I buried him as the contract was, in a narrow grave and deep,
And there he's waiting the great clean-up, when the judgement sluice-heads
sweep
And I smoke my pipe, and I meditate in the land of the midnight sun,
And I often wonder if they was, the awful things I've done,
And as I sit and the parson talks, expounding of the Law,
I often think of poor old Bill -- and how hard he was to saw.
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mhuang (Mark Huang):
{from system: This user's .plan file is not world-readable}
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sorokin (This can be any string!):
And if I die today I'll be the HAPPY Phantom
And I'll go chasin' the nuns out in the yard
And I'll run naked through the streets without my mask on
And I will never need umbrellas in the rain
I'll wake up in strawberry fields every day
And the atrocities of school I can forgive
The HAPPY phantom has no right to bitch
Oo who the time is getting close
Oo who time to be a ghost
Oo who every day we're getting closer
The sun is getting dim
Will we pay for who we been
So if I die today I'll be the HAPPY phantom
And I'll go wearin' my NAUGHTIES like a jewel
They'll be my ticket to the universal opera
There's Judy Garland taking Buddha by the hand
And then these seven little men get up to dance
they say Confucius does his crossword with a pen
I'm still the angel to a girl who hates to SIN
Oo who the time is getting close
Oo who time to be a ghost
Oo who every day we're getting closer
The sun is getting dim
Will I pay for who I been
Or will I see you dear and wish I could come back
You found a girl that you could TRULY love again
Will you still call for me when she falls asleep
Or do we soon forget the things we cannot see
Oo who the time is getting close
Oo who time to be a ghost
Oo who every day we're getting closer
The sun is getting dim
Will I pay for who I been
And if I die today
And if I die today
And if I die today
Chasin' the nuns out in the yard
--- End of Central America ---
