I Believe That When I Am Dead,

Denied The Outlet, Through Play, Of His Energies, He Recoiled Upon Himself And Developed His Mental Processes. He Became Cunning; He Had Idle Time In Which To Devote Himself To Thoughts Of Trickery.

With The Aurora Borealis Flaming Coldly Overhead, Or The Stars Leaping In The Frost Dance, And The Land Numb And Frozen Under Its Pall Of Snow, This Song Of The Huskies Might Have Been The Defiance Of Life, Only It Was Pitched In Minor Key, With Long-drawn Wailings And Half-sobs, And Was More The Pleading Of Life, The Articulate Travail Of Existence. It Was An Old Song, Old As The Breed Itself--one Of The First Songs Of The Younger World In A Day When Songs Were Sad.

Life Is So Short. I Would Rather Sing One Song Than Interpret The Thousand.

I Did Not Begin When I Was Born, Nor When I Was Conceived. I Have Been Growing, Developing, Through Incalculable Myriads Of Millenniums... All My Previous Selves Have Their Voices, Echoes, Promptings In Me... Oh, Incalculable Times Again Shall I Be Born.

A Vast Silence Reigned Over The Land. The Land Itself Was A Desolation, Lifeless, Without Movement, So Lone And Cold That The Spirit Of It Was Not Even That Of Sadness. There Was A Hint In It Of Laughter, But Of Laughter More Terrible Than Any Sadness-a Laughter That Was Mirthless As The Smile Of The Sphinx, A Laughter Cold As The Frost And Partaking Of The Grimness Of Infallibility. It Was The Masterful And Incommunicable Wisdom Of Eternity Laughing At The Futility Of Life And The Effort Of Life. It Was The Wild, The Savage, Frozen-hearted Northland Wild.