Poems by Pat O Cotter

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Prospecting

Looking for placer pangar,

Loafing about in the hills,

Getting your grub with a rifle,

Taking your drink from rills.

Getting your bed from the spruce tree,

Taking your course by your dreams,

Just camping alone in the mountains,

Siwashing along the streams.

by Pat O Cotter

That 30 US On The Wall

A man that's spent years knocking round "out in front"

Has most usually had lots of pals--

He's mixed up with pardners at various times

And he's had his affairs with the gals.

Now, a pardner's peculiar in lots of his ways

And he'll ditch you for various reasons,

And a gal never knows straight up from twice

And her mind seems to change with the seasons.

by Pat O Cotter

And Still I Like Alaska

I've tramped across her endless miles of tundra,

I've rafted all her rapid flowing streams,

She's kept me on the hummer,

I've fought mosquits in summer

And "siwashed" neath Aurora's wintry beams,

And still, I like Alaska.

I went a winter once on pay streak bacon,

I've gone a year on nothing much but beans,

by Pat O Cotter

Why

Why is it Alaskans all come back

When they've quit this land for good?

Why is it that no man stays away

When he's sworn to his friends he would?

Where lies the grip this country hath

All tangled around the heart

That takes a grip that can never slip

And can never be torn apart?

by Pat O Cotter

The Woman That You Pass By

My trade was old when the world was new,

Ere the pyramids rose by the Nile

Men quitted their wives, and gave me their goods

For the warmth of my kiss, and my smile.

For never was wife who could hold her man

By the honeymoon's afterglow

Did I veil mine eyes and beckon to him,

God's truth, and 'tis you who know.

by Pat O Cotter

The New Master

As one who lays aside a task, where one has ruled alone,

I lay aside the crown of hell, and give to you my throne;

As one who feels his race is run, whose day is of the past,

I recognize your genius, and abdicate at last.

I go and leave you master, and I feel it's just as well,

For Hades lacks its master, until you rule in hell.

The world wags on and changes, old methods now seem weak,

And the changes of a thousand years, of these I fain would speak.

by Pat O Cotter

For

The dream of the white man ever goes out

To the fight that can never be won,

And ever he plans to do the things

That they say can never be done.

It's seldom he values the things that are,

What he craves he never may gain,

But ever he tries, till the day he dies

And then feels he has lived in vain.

by Pat O Cotter

How Long?

As long as lure o' placer gold

Brings North the best ye breed,

As long as tales of camps and trails

Are planted with your seed,

As long as red blood courses thru

And warms adventure's sons,

They'll sally forth, bound for the North,

Misfortune's chosen ones.

by Pat O Cotter

The Malamute

When the stars from the skies have fallen

And the smoke of the world's cleared away;

When Saint Peter marks "30" in Life's Book

And we meet there on Judgment Day;

When our trials and troubles are ended

And we're wise to the best and the worst;

When the time has arrived that the wise ones

Have told us the last shall be first;

by Pat O Cotter