Mags-<br>Another wonderful poem by fellow hiker, Mr. Robert Service! Thank you so much for posting it. I will read it over and over. <br><br><b><i>Paul Magnanti <pmags@yahoo.com></i></b> wrote:<blockquote class="replbq" style="border-left: 2px solid rgb(16, 16, 255); margin-left: 5px; padding-left: 5px;"> I'm always liked this poem by him (if slightly un-PC in one line...) :<br><br><br>The Call of the Wild<br><br><br><br>Have you gazed on naked grandeur where there's nothing else to gaze on,<br><br> Set pieces and drop-curtain scenes galore,<br><br>Big mountains heaved to heaven, which the blinding sunsets blazon,<br><br> Black canyons where the rapids rip and roar?<br><br>Have you swept the visioned valley<br><br> with the green stream streaking through it,<br><br> Searched the Vastness for a something you have lost?<br><br>Have you strung your soul to silence? Then for God's sake go and do it;<br><br> Hear the challenge, learn the lesson, pay the
cost.<br><br><br><br>Have you wandered in the wilderness, the sagebrush desolation,<br><br> The bunch-grass levels where the cattle graze?<br><br>Have you whistled bits of rag-time at the end of all creation,<br><br> And learned to know the desert's little ways?<br><br>Have you camped upon the foothills, have you galloped o'er the ranges,<br><br> Have you roamed the arid sun-lands through and through?<br><br>Have you chummed up with the mesa? Do you know its moods and changes?<br><br> Then listen to the Wild -- it's calling you.<br><br><br><br>Have you known the Great White Silence, not a snow-gemmed twig aquiver?<br><br> (Eternal truths that shame our soothing lies.)<br><br>Have you broken trail on snowshoes? mushed your huskies up the river,<br><br> Dared the unknown, led the way, and clutched the prize?<br><br>Have you marked the map's void spaces, mingled with the mongrel races,<br><br> Felt the savage strength of brute in every thew?<br><br>And though grim as hell
the worst is, can you round it off with curses?<br><br> Then hearken to the Wild -- it's wanting you.<br><br><br><br>Have you suffered, starved and triumphed,<br><br> groveled down, yet grasped at glory,<br><br> Grown bigger in the bigness of the whole?<br><br>"Done things" just for the doing, letting babblers tell the story,<br><br> Seeing through the nice veneer the naked soul?<br><br>Have you seen God in His splendors, heard the text that nature renders?<br><br> (You'll never hear it in the family pew.)<br><br>The simple things, the true things, the silent men who do things --<br><br> Then listen to the Wild -- it's calling you.<br><br><br><br>They have cradled you in custom, they have primed you with their preaching,<br><br> They have soaked you in convention through and through;<br><br>They have put you in a showcase; you're a credit to their teaching --<br><br> But can't you hear the Wild? -- it's calling you.<br><br>Let us probe the silent places, let us seek what
luck betide us;<br><br> Let us journey to a lonely land I know.<br><br>There's a whisper on the night-wind, there's a star agleam to guide us,<br><br> And the Wild is calling, calling . . . let us go.<br><br><br> <br>************************************************************<br>The true harvest of my life is intangible.... a little stardust <br>caught, a portion of the rainbow I have clutched<br>--Thoreau<br>http://www.pmags.com<br><br><br>_______________________________________________<br>Pct-l mailing list<br>Pct-l@backcountry.net<br>To unsubscribe or change list options (digest, etc):<br>http://mailman.backcountry.net/mailman/listinfo/pct-l<br></blockquote><br><p> 
<hr size=1>Be a better friend, newshound, and
know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. <a href="http://us.rd.yahoo.com/evt=51733/*http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ "> Try it now.</a>