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Northwest Passage
by Stan Rogers
The last verse, written later, is from a web
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Chorus:
Ah for just one time I would take the
Northwest Passage
To find the hand of Franklin reaching for
the Beaufort Sea;
Tracing one warm line through a land so wide
and savage
And make a Northwest Passage to the sea.
Westward from the Davis Straight 'tis there
'twas said to lie
The sea route to the Orient for which so
many died;
Seeking gold and glory, leaving weathered,
broken bones
And a long forgotten lonely cairn of stones.
Chorus
Three centuries thereafter, I take passage
over land
In the footsteps of brave Kelso, where his
"sea of flowers" began
Watching cities rise before me, then behind
me sink again
This tardiest explorer, driving hard across
the plain.
Chorus
And through the night, behind the wheel, the
mileage clicking West
I think upon MacKenzie, David Thomson and
the rest
Who cracked the mountain ramparts and did
show a path for me
To race the roaring Frasier to the sea.
Chorus
How then am I so different from the first
men through this way?
Like them I left a settled life, I threw it
all away.
To seek a Northwest Passage at the call of
many men
To find there but the road back home again
Chorus
And if should be I come again to loved ones
left at home,
Put the journals on the mantle, shake the
frost out of my bones,
Making memories of the passage, only
memories after all,
And hardships there the hardest to recall.
Chorus |
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