so
I went into a golden land,
Chimborazo, Cotopaxi
Took me by the hand.

My father died, my brother too,
They passed like fleeting dreams,
I stood where Popocatapetl
In the sunlight gleams.

I dimly heard the master's voice
And boys far-off at play,--
Chimborazo, Cotopaxi
Had stolen me away.

I walked in a great golden dream
To and fro from school--
Shining Popocatapetl
The dusty streets did rule.

I walked home with a gold dark boy
And never a word I'd say,
Chimborazo, Cotopaxi
Had taken my speech away.

I gazed entranced upon his face
Fairer than any flower--
O shining Popocatapetl
It was thy magic hour:

The houses, people, traffic seemed
Thin fading dreams by day;
Chimborazo, Cotopaxi,
They had stolen my soul away!

_Patrick MacGill_

Patrick MacGill was born in Donegal in 1890. He was the son of
poverty-stricken peasants and, between the ages of 12 and 19, he
worked as farm-servant, drainer, potato-digger, and navvy, becoming
one of the thousands of stray "tramp-laborers" who cross each summer
from Ireland to Scotland to help gather in the crops. Out of his
bitter experiences and the evils of modern industrial life, he wrote
several vivid novels (_The Rat Pit_ is an unforgettable document) and
the tragedy-crammed _Songs of the Dead End_. He joined the editorial
staff of _The Daily Express_ in 1911; was in the British army during
the war; was wounded at Loos in 1915; and wrote his _Soldier Songs_
during the conflict.

BY-THE-WAY

These be the little verses, rough and uncultured, which
I've written in hut and model, deep in the dirty ditch,
On the upturned hod by the palace made for the idle rich.

Out on the happy highway, or lines where the engines go,
Which fact you may hardly credit, still for your doubts 'tis so,
For I am the person who wrote them, and surely to God, I know!

Wrote them beside the hot-plate, or under the chilling skies,
Some of them true as death is, some of them merely lies,
Some of them very foolish, some of them otherwise.

Little sorrows and hopings, little and rugged rhymes,
Some of them maybe distasteful to the moral men of our times,
Some of them marked against me in the Book of the Many Crimes.

These, the Songs of a Navvy, bearing the taint of the brute,
Un