Then memory pulls her picket pins, your thoughts go back thru years
To Outside, Home, and Sweetheart, and this last thought sort of cheers;
You recollect the days you spent beneath a Southern sky
And with regret you now remember they all ended with good-by. 
It’s the same old world-wide feeling that comes to man each year,
But it seems to hit us harder, when we’re getting in the “clear”;
It seems that it grows stronger, each year added to our life—­
It’s the hankering of the white man for a Pal, a Home, a Wife.

Man was not meant to live alone, why quarrel with Nature’s laws,
God gave you strength to build a home, wherefor then do you pause? 
Go forward like your father did, go forth and seek your mate,
For till you know a wife and home, you know not Heaven’s Gate. 
It’s the deep inherent longing for a baby on your knee,
For the sound of children’s voices, beneath your own fig tree. 
The male instinct to have a mate, to love, to guard, to hold,
The one instinct that’s left to us, that triumphs over gold.

With strength enough to build a home when once you get a wife
Bear gently with her follies, but guard her with your life;
Crowd full her heart with loving, yet hold a guarded rein,
Lest ye two now that rate as one, again be counted twain. 
And if she come from Outside Camp, remember all is new
And give her time to find herself, teach her to lean on you. 
And should homesickness grip her, and you find your wife in tears
Forget the jest and love her, remember your first years.

Then gone that restless feeling, gone all desire to roam,
Life’s interest all is centered, deep in your Northern home. 
Life waits in peace the cleanup, you pass up Outside joys,
And the tempter’s voice is silenced by the music of her voice. 
Then you’re a true Alaskan, with a home won from the North,
God grant you children’s voices when the violets peep forth,
And in the summer evening, beneath the midnight sun,
May your heart grow closer to her, when the water starts to run.

THE THROWBACK

He was born far east of the Rockies
  Of a pet in society’s van;
A wine-soaked daughter of pleasure
  Bred back and threw a man;
A man-child who grew up a stranger,
  Who never could learn the way
Of a people who gauge their pleasure
  On a line with the price they pay.

Just a shred of an education—­
  A few years of college life,
A course in the card and wine room,
  A year with a chorus-girl wife,
Then disgust with a life unnatural
  Spurred on with the curse of the go,
He quitted that life forever
  For the land of the gold and snow.

The Lure of the Land had gripped him,
  The Land where you die if you fail;
The Land of the fabled fortunes,
  The Land of the endless trail. 
The Land of the lonely silence,
  The Land of the cruel cold,
The Land of the lost ambitions
  Alaska, the Land of gold.