The Ballad of Blasphemous Bill

by Robert W. Service

I took a contract to bury the body
Of blasphemous Bill MacKie,
Whenever, wherever or whatsoever The manner of death he die --
Whether he die in the light o' 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 follow and look Till 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 bone-yard 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 in that very night Down in the Tenderloin).
Then I painted a three-foot slab of pine: "Here lies poor Bill MacKie",
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 hut by the great divide, And 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 hisself;
And I packed it full of grub and "hooch", And I slung it on the sleigh;
Then I harnessed up my team of dogs And was off at dawn of day.
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 heart-breaking 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 I 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 accurst, Shunned by the scouring brutes,
And all I heard was my own harsh word And the whine of the malamutes,
Till 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, goldarn 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 sat by 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"?
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 seem no good;
His arms and legs stuck out like pegs, As if they was made of wood.
Till at last I said: "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 got to -- saw."
So I sawed off poor Bill's arms and legs, And I laid him snug and straight
In the little coffin he picked hisself, 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 started 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 Judgment sluice-heads sweep;
And I smoke my pipe and I meditate In the light of the Midnight Sun,
And sometimes I wonder if they was, The awful things I 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.

Best

GWB

I haven't heard that term "shits and giggles" for 30 years.

Poor old Bill!

Thank you sir!

I like tall Tales and Cowboy poetry.Heres one I kind of relate to:



R. V. Jahns

"Evolution"

"I've always believed as the Bible says, that God created the earth
and everything else there is in this universe.

But the time has come for me to consider another conclusion,
maybe there is something to be said for the theory of evolution.............

Now I'm not one to quickly give up on what I believe,
But things are going on whose meaning I can't perceive

Like last time I got bucked off and landed crooked on my knee,
I found the ground to be a lot harder than it ever use to be.

And when I bend over to pick something off the ground,
either I've grown taller or the ground is further down.

Then I noticed in the mirror just the other day,
that my hair that once was shiny brown has now turned to gray.

I've still got hair on my head but it looks like an old gray mop,
and my eyebrows are growing so long I can comb them over the top.

My mustache that I so carefully goomed to keep it looking it's best,
now just looks gray and drab like a well used packrat's nest.

My Levi's no longer fit, I have to hitch 'em when I cough.
It's like someone unscrewed my bellybutton and my butt just plum fell off.

I use to walk about with pride, stomach in and chest stuck out.....
Now I waddle like a crippled goose with a terrible bad case of gout.

It seems that I maybe I'm evolving, into what I'm not sure,
but I'm getting more aches and pains than those city doctors can cure.

I don't mean to be complaining, for it ain't the cowboy way
but it seems to me that if it was like some scientists say.....

That mankind should be getting better instead of getting worse,
but new problems keep cropping up like some kind of curse.

Wars and reports of wars coming from everywhere,
new sickness and pestilence popping up here and there.

Prices keep getting higher and it really is a shame,
But it ain't gonna get any better for it's greed that is to blame.

Now after thinking about these things, let me tell you what I know.
These days were prophesied about in the Bible many years ago.

These "Last Days" we're living thru will soon be never more
then we can have the peace and security that we all long for.

So I'll just continue on and live my life the best way that I can
And always try to be quick to help my fellow man."

the end......
....written by R.V. Jahns.....

my favorite "service" line
there is a race of men
a breed who can't set still
so they break the hearts of kith and kin
and roam the world at will

ravenr,
since you mention it.

And since you didn't post the whole poem, well..........

GWB


The Men That Don't Fit In

There's a race of men that don't fit in,
A race that can't stay still;
So they break the hearts of kith and kin,
And they roam the world at will.
They range the field and they rove the flood,
And they climb the mountain's crest;
Theirs is the curse of the gypsy blood,
And they don't know how to rest.

If they just went straight they might go far;
They are strong and brave and true;
But they're always tired of the things that are,
And they want the strange and new.
They say: "Could I find my proper groove,
What a deep mark I would make!"
So they chop and change, and each fresh move
Is only a fresh mistake.

And each forgets, as he strips and runs
With a brilliant, fitful pace,
It's the steady, quiet, plodding ones
Who win in the lifelong race.
And each forgets that his youth has fled,
Forgets that his prime is past,
Till he stands one day, with a hope that's dead,
In the glare of the truth at last.

He has failed, he has failed; he has missed his chance;
He has just done things by half.
Life's been a jolly good joke on him,
And now is the time to laugh.
Ha, ha! He is one of the Legion Lost;
He was never meant to win;
He's a rolling stone, and it's bred in the bone;
He's a man who won't fit in.