Click in the field, then press CTRL+C to copy the HTML code
<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=508697" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Ballad Of Pious Pete</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">&quot;The North has got him.&quot; --Yukonism.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>I tried to refine that neighbor of mine, honest to God, I did.<br>I grieved for his fate, and early and late I watched over him like a kid.<br>I gave him excuse, I bore his abuse in every way that I could;<br>I swore to prevail; I camped on his trail; I plotted and planned for his good.<br>By day and by night I strove in men's sight to gather him into the fold,<br>With precept and prayer, with hope and despair, in hunger and hardship and cold.<br>I followed him into Gehennas of sin, I sat where the sirens sit;<br>In the shade of the Pole, for the sake of his soul, I strove with the powers of the Pit.<br>I shadowed him down to the scrofulous town; I dragged him from dissolute brawls;<br>But I killed the galoot when he started to shoot electricity into my walls.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">God knows what I did he should seek to be rid of one who would save him from shame.<br>God knows what I bore that night when he swore and bade me make tracks from his claim.<br>I started to tell of the horrors of hell, when sudden his eyes lit like coals;<br>And &quot;Chuck it,&quot; says he, &quot;don't persecute me with your cant and your saving of souls.&quot;<br>I'll swear I was mild as I'd be with a child, but he called me the son of a slut;<br>And, grabbing his gun with a leap and a run, he threatened my face with the butt.<br>So what could I do (I leave it to you)? With curses he harried me forth;<br>Then he was alone, and I was alone, and over us menaced the North.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Our cabins were near; I could see, I could hear; but between us there rippled the creek;<br>And all summer through, with a rancor that grew, he would pass me and never would speak.<br>Then a shuddery breath like the coming of Death crept down from the peaks far away;<br>The water was still; the twilight was chill; the sky was a tatter of gray.<br>Swift came the Big Cold, and opal and gold the lights of the witches arose;<br>The frost-tyrant clinched, and the valley was cinched by the stark and cadaverous snows.<br>The trees were like lace where the star-beams could chase, each leaf was a jewel agleam.<br>The soft white hush lapped the Northland and wrapped us round in a crystalline dream;<br>So still I could hear quite loud in my ear the swish of the pinions of time;<br>So bright I could see, as plain as could be, the wings of God's angels ashine.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">As I read in the Book I would oftentimes look to that cabin just over the creek.<br>Ah me, it was sad and evil and bad, two neighbors who never would speak!<br>I knew that full well like a devil in hell he was hatching out, early and late,<br>A system to bear through the frost-spangled air the warm, crimson waves of his hate.<br>I only could peer and shudder and fear--'twas ever so ghastly and still;<br>But I knew over there in his lonely despair he was plotting me terrible ill.<br>I knew that he nursed a malice accurst, like the blast of a winnowing flame;<br>I pleaded aloud for a shield, for a shroud--Oh, God! then calamity came.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Mad! If I'm mad then you too are mad; but it's all in the point of view.<br>If you'd looked at them things gallivantin' on wings, all purple and green and blue;<br>If you'd noticed them twist, as they mounted and hissed like scorpions dim in the dark;<br>If you'd seen them rebound with a horrible sound, and spitefully spitting a spark;<br>If you'd watched IT with dread, as it hissed by your bed, that thing with the feelers that crawls--<br>You'd have settled the brute that attempted to shoot electricity into your walls.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Oh, some they were blue, and they slithered right through; they were silent and squashy and round;<br>And some they were green; they were wriggly and lean; they writhed with so hateful a sound.<br>My blood seemed to freeze; I fell on my knees; my face was a white splash of dread.<br>Oh, the Green and the Blue, they were gruesome to view; but the worst of them all were the Red.<br>They came through the door, they came through the floor, they came through the moss-creviced logs.<br>They were savage and dire; they were whiskered with fire; they bickered like malamute dogs.<br>They ravined in rings like iniquitous things; they gulped down the Green and the Blue.<br>I crinkled with fear whene'er they drew near, and nearer and nearer they drew.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And then came the crown of Horror's grim crown, the monster so loathsomely red.<br>Each eye was a pin that shot out and in, as, squidlike, it oozed to my bed;<br>So softly it crept with feelers that swept and quivered like fine copper wire;<br>Its belly was white with a sulphurous light, it jaws were a-drooling with fire.<br>It came and it came; I could breathe of its flame, but never a wink could I look.<br>I thrust in its maw the Fount of the Law; I fended it off with the Book.<br>I was weak--oh, so weak--but I thrilled at its shriek, as wildly it fled in the night;<br>And deathlike I lay till the dawn of the day. (Was ever so welcome the light?)</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I loaded my gun at the rise of the sun; to his cabin so softly I slunk.<br>My neighbor was there in the frost-freighted air, all wrapped in a robe in his bunk.<br>It muffled his moans; it outlined his bones, as feebly he twisted about;<br>His gums were so black, and his lips seemed to crack, and his teeth all were loosening out.<br>'Twas a death's head that peered through the tangle of beard; 'twas a face I will never forget;<br>Sunk eyes full of woe, and they troubled me so with their pleadings and anguish, and yet<br>As I rested my gaze in a misty amaze on the scurvy-degenerate wreck,<br>I thought of the Things with the dragon-fly wings, then laid I my gun on his neck.<br>He gave out a cry that was faint as a sigh, like a perishing malamute,<br>And he says unto me, &quot;I'm converted,&quot; says he; &quot;for Christ's sake, Peter, don't shoot!&quot;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">* * * * *</div><div style="margin:10px 0">They're taking me out with an escort about, and under a sergeant's care;<br>I am humbled indeed, for I'm 'cuffed to a Swede that thinks he's a millionaire.<br>But it's all Gospel true what I'm telling to you-- up there where the Shadow falls--<br>That I settled Sam Noot when he started to shoot electricity into my walls.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Robert+William+Service">Robert William Service</a><div class=q>
<img src="https://www.citatepedia.ro/g/32share.png" style="float:left" alt="Share">
<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=508697" data-title="The Ballad Of Pious Pete de Robert William Service" data-description="&quot;The North has got him.&quot; --Yukonism.


I tried to refine that neighbor of mine, honest to God, I did.
I grieved for his fate, and early and late I watched over him like a kid.
I gave him excuse, I bore his abuse in every way that I could..."></div>
</div>
</div>