Poems About the West

Out Where the West Begins

Arthur Chapman

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Out where the handclasp's a little stronger,
Out where the smile dwells a little longer,
That's where the West begins;
Out where the sun is a little brighter,
Where the snows that fall are a trifle whiter,
Where the bonds of home are a wee bit tighter,
That's where the West begins.

Out where the skies are a trifle bluer,
Out where friendship's a little truer,
That's where the West begins;
Out where a fresher breeze is blowing,
Where there's laughter in every streamlet flowing,
Where there's more of reaping and less of sowing,
That's where the West begins.

Out where the world is in the making,
Where fewer hearts in despair are aching,
That's where the West begins;
Where there's more of singing and less of sighing,
Where there's more of giving and less of buying,
And a man makes friends without half trying—
That's where the West begins.

The Westerner

Arthur Chapman

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I'll never go where hills can't smile
Upon me, day and night,
And guard me, many a weary mile,
And aid me in life's fight.

From those white peaks I'll not stray far,
Where less bright is the day,
Nor see, toward dimmer evening star,
My camp-smoke curl its way.

I never want to seek in vain
That wondrous, high plateau—
That sage-clad, rolling Western plain
Where golden sunsets glow.

I never want to turn unto
Some rain-washed, foggy shore;
Here in this vasty land, and new,
Hunt me forevermore.

Night in the West

by Grace C. Howes

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There is something uplifting, inspiring,
In the plains of the beautiful West,
When calmly the day is expiring
And all Nature is going to rest.

The sun sets in glorious splendor,
Then a hush settles over the world,
The voices of Day sink to silence
As the mantle of Night is unfurled.

Gently the shadows grow darker.
The light slowly fades from the West.
The countryfolk cease all their labors
And partake of the sleep of the blest.

The moon, in her majesty, rises,
The delicate queen of the night,
And as she mounts higher and higher
She floods all the world with her light.

From afar, through the silence, there comes
The wild coyote's quavering howl,
Then, as mystery and silence resume
I hear the sad hoot of the owl.

Each creature of Nature rejoices
In the wonderful night, Heaven-born,
Sweetly they sleep through the silence
To wake at the coming of morn.

Then give me the beautiful prairie,
With its miles of undented sod,
It breathes of the peace of the angels,
And the goodness and mercy of God.

July in the West

by James Newton Matthews

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DAY

A rhythm of reapers; a flashing
Of steels in the meadows; a lashing
Of sheaves in the wheatlands; a glitter
Of grain-builded streets, and a twitter
Of birds in a motionless sky,—
And that is July!

A rustle of corn-leaves; a tinkle
Of bells on the hills; a twinkle
Of sheep in the lowlands; a bevy
Of bees where the clover is heavy;
A butterfly blundering by,—
And that is July!

NIGHT

A moon-flooded prairie; a straying
Of leal-hearted lovers; a baying
Of far away watchdogs; a dreaming
Of brown-fisted farmers; a gleaming
Of fireflies eddying nigh,—
And that is July!

A babble of brooks that deliver
Their flower-purpled waves to the river;
A moan in the marshes; in thickets
A dolorous droning of crickets,
Attuned to a whippoorwill's cry,—
And that is July!

A Prairie Song

by Anonymous

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Oh, music springs under the galloping hoofs,
Out on the plains;
Where mile after mile drops behind with a smile,
And to-morrow seems always to tempt and beguile,—
Out on the plains.

Oh, where are the traces of yesterday's ride?
There to the north;
Where alfalfa and sage sigh themselves into sleep,
Where the buttes loom up suddenly, startling and steep,—
There to the north.

Oh, rest not my pony, there's youth in my heart,
Out on the plains;
And the wind sings a wild song to rob me of care,
And there's room here to live and to love and to dare,—
Out on the plains.

On the Prairie

by Herbert Bates

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Bare, low, tawny hills
With bluer heights beyond,
And the air is sweet with spring,
But when will the earth respond?

Prairie that Tolls for leagues,
Dusky and golden-pale,
Like a stirless sea of waves,
Unbroken by ship or sail.

The hollows are dark with brush,
And black with the wash of showers,
And ragged with bleaching wreck
Of the ranks of the tall sunflowers.

No cloud in the blue, no stir
Save the shrill of the wind in the grass,
And the meadow-lark's note, and the call
Of the wind-borne crows that pass.

Bare, low, tawny hills,
With bluer heights beyond,
And the air is sweet with spring,
But when will the earth respond?

My Prairies

by Hamlin Garland

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I love my prairies, they are mine
From zenith to horizon line,
Clipping a world of sky and sod
Like the bended arm and wrist of God.

I love their grasses. The skies
Are larger, and my restless eyes
Fasten on more of earth and air
Than seashore furnishes anywhere.

I love the hazel thickets; and the breeze,
The never resting prairie winds. The trees
That stand like spear points high
Against the dark blue sky

Are wonderful to me. I love the gold
Of newly shaven stubble, rolled
A royal carpet toward the sun, fit to be
The pathway of a deity.

I love the life of pasture lands; the songs of birds
Are not more thrilling to me than the herd's
Mad bellowing or the shadow stride
Of mounted herdsmen at my side.

I love my prairies, they are mine
From high sun to horizon line.
The mountains and the cold gray sea
Are not for me, are not for me.

Our Prairie Homes

by Charles J. Barber

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How happy they who do reside
Along Missouri’s flowing tide;
Or on the gently rolling plains,
By winding streams and shady lanes;
Who westward came from childhood homes—
From old familiar spires and domes,
From hill and dale and greenwood wild,
Where oft they sported when a child;
From every tie that’s to them dear—
From every state both far and near—
From every nation on the earth
Where has been told Nebraska’s worth,
They came and left their native land
And gave to friends the parting hand;
With white sails bending to the breeze
They bravely crossed the stormy seas,
And quickly o’er the iron rail,
And farther still by Indian trail,
Until they gained this fertile shore
And viewed its rolling prairies o’er,
And by its rivers, lakes and streams
Have realized their early dreams;
And now have happy homes and friends
In towns and cities, dales and glens;
And round the fireside’s cheerful blaze
Their children frolic in their plays.

The Tumbleweed

by Hannah Rea Woodman

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Where do they come from,
The Tumbleweed?
Where do they go to,
The Tumbleweed?
Who knows whence is their life so free,
Born on the prairies' shadowless sea?
Who knows of the parents they boast,
This tossing, fringed, homeless host?
Who knows where they bury their dead
When the winds', high requiem is said?—
Vagrants alway,
The Tumbleweed!

Where do they come from,
The Tumbleweed?
Where do they go to,
The Tumbleweed?
Ask of the breezes that sigh and fall;
Ask of the winds that shriek and call;
Ask of the changing lights that pass
Over the wheat, the corn, the grass;
Ask of the rose-gray mists that creep
Like mother-watch o'er the prairies' sleep,—
Vagrants alway,
The Tumbleweed!

Where do they come from,
The Tumbleweed?
Where do they go to,
The Tumbleweed?
Suddenly at your feet they lie,
Laughing, tumbling, go rolling by;
Over the blue-bound prairies leap,
No faith, no love, no tryst they keep;
Free and wild is the will they boast,
This tossing, fringed, homeless host,—
Vagrants alway,
The Tumbleweed!

On the Prairie

by Ellen P. Allerton

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Out on the prairie—a shrieking storm!
How the pitiless cold, driven from homes and firesides warm,
In its terrible hold,
Here grapples and grips with strength untold!

Miles and miles, and nothing in sight,
Only sweeps of snow—
That under the dust of the gathering night,
Now dimmer grow—breasting the winds that fiercely blow.

Not a friendly light, not a sheltering tree,
On the prairie's breast.
And my failing feet shrink under me!
I am heavy—oppressed
With a drowsy weight; I must stop and rest.

No, I can not go on! Here I lay me down,
While the storm sweeps by;
Press on, if you can, to the sheltering town;
In peace let me lie.
I am not cold . . . only sleepy . . . good-by.

Wild Horse of the Prairies

by Isaac McLellan

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For other scenes their lights expand,
Out in the savage western land,
Where wildernesses lone and grand,
Their awful glooms extend;
Far where the Rocky Mounts upthrow
Their pinnacles of rock and snow,
White cones, whereon the sunset's glow,
Its roseate hues doth blend.

Around them, woods primeval press,
Around them, pastures measureless,
Waved by the idle wind's caress,
Reach th' horizon's edge.
In dark ravine and gulch the bear
And tiger-cat have made their lair,
The bison range the meadows there,
To browse the bending sedge.
O'er open plain, in leafy dell,
In hollow vale, on upland swell,
The wild steeds of the prairies dwell,
Free as the mountain wind;
No iron bit or curb have they,
No galling spur, no trappings gay,
No rider to control their way,
Their untam'd limbs to bind.
Free as the eagle cleaves through space,
They curvet or they join in race,
Fleeter than wild beasts of the chase,
A vast unnumbered throng;
They crop the dewy grass at will,
In ice cold waters drink their fill,
Scour the wild plain or sweep the hill,
Unscarr'd by whip or thong.
Yet comes at times a yelling crew,
The savage with his wild halloo,
The painted Blackfoot or Sioux,
All greedy for the spoil;
It were a thrilling sight to see
Those lawless riders fierce and free,
Each swinging with a madden'd glee,
The lariat's twisting coil.
On, on the frantic horsemen sweep,
On, on the snorting wild steeds leap,
Down flowery slope, o'er wooded steep,
Pursuers and pursued;
Then far th' unerring noose is thrown,
The stately bay or lusty roan
Fall captive, panting, with a groan,
All vanquish'd and subdued.

Prairie Waters by Night

by Carl Sandburg.

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Chatter of birds two by two raises a night song joining a litany of running water—sheer waters showing the russet of old stones remembering many rains.

And the long willows drowse on the shoulders of the running water, and sleep from much music; joined songs of day-end, feathery throats and stony waters, in a choir chanting new psalms.

It is too much for the long willows when low laughter of a red moon comes down; and the willows drowse and sleep on the shoulders of the running water.

Sa-cá-ga-we-a

*Song of the Eagle that Mates with the Storm!*
by N. C. Wyeth

by Edna Dean Proctor

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Sho-shó-ne Sa-cá-ga-we-a—captive and wife was she
On the grassy plains of Dakota in the land of the Minnetaree;
But she heard the west wind calling, and longed to follow the sun
Back to the shining mountains and the glens where her life begun.

So, when the valiant Captains, fain for the Asian sea,
Stayed their marvellous journey in the land of the Minnetaree
(The Red Men wondering, wary—Omaha, Mandan, Sioux—
Friendly now, now hostile, as they toiled the wilderness through),
Glad she turned from the grassy plains and led their way to the West,
Her course as true as the swan's that flew north to its reedy nest;
Her eye as keen as the eagle's when the young lambs feed below;
Her ear alert as the stag's at morn guarding the fawn and doe.
Straight was she as a hillside fir, lithe as the willow-tree,
And her foot as fleet as the antelope's when the hunter rides the lea;
In broidered tunic and moccasins, with braided raven hair,
And closely belted buffalo robe with her baby nestling there—
Girl of but sixteen summers, the homing bird of the quest,
Free of the tongues of the mountains, deep on her heart imprest,—
Sho-shó-ne Sa-ca-ga-we-a led the way to the West!—
To Missouri's broad savannas dark with bison and deer,
While the grizzly roamed the savage shore and cougar and wolf prowled near;
To the cataract's leap, and the meadows with lily and rose abloom;
The sunless trails of the forest, and the can yon's hush and gloom;
By the veins of gold and silver, and the mountains vast and grim—
Their snowy summits lost in clouds on the wide horizon's brim;
Through sombre pass, by soaring peak, till the Asian wind blew free,
And lo! the roar of the Oregon and the splendor of the Sea!

Some day, in the lordly upland where the snow-fed streams divide—
Afoam for the far Atlantic, afoam for Pacific's tide—
There, by the valiant Captains whose glory will never dim
While the sun goes down to the Asian sea and the stars in ether swim,
She will stand in bronze as richly brown as the hue of her girlish cheek,
With broidered robe and braided hair and lips just curved to speak;
And the mountain winds will murmur as they linger along the crest,
"Sho-shó-ne Sa-cá-ga-we-a, who led the way to the West!"

Daniel Boone

by Lord Byron

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Of all men, saving Sylla the man-slayer,
Who passes for in life and death most lucky,
Of the great names which in our faces stare,
The General Boone, backwoodsman of Kentucky,
Was happiest amongst mortals anywhere;
For, killing nothing but a bear or buck, he
Enjoyed the lonely, vigorous, harmless days
Of his old age in wilds of deepest maze.

Crime came not near him, she is not the child
Of solitude; health shrank not from him, for
Her home is in the rarely trodden wild,
Where if men seek her not, and death be more
Their choice than life, forgive them, as beguiled
By habit to what their own hearts abhor,
In cities caged. The present case in point I
Cite is, that Boone lived hunting up to ninety;

And, what’s still stranger, left behind a name
For which men vainly decimate the throng,
Not only famous, but of that good fame,
Without which glory’s but a tavern song—
Simple, serene, the antipodes of shame,
Which hate nor envy could e’er tinge with wrong;
An active hermit, even in age the child
Of nature, or the Man of Ross run wild.

’Tis true he shrank from men, even of his nation;
When they built up unto his darling trees,
He moved some hundred miles off, for a station
Where there were fewer houses and more ease;
The inconvenience of civilization
Is that you neither can be pleased nor please;
But where he met the individual man,
He showed himself as kind as mortal can.

Maid of the West-Land

by Robert J. C. Stead

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Heart that is free as the open air,
Eyes like the beams of the morn that rise
Over our prairies, bright and fair,
Brow like the silver of sunset skies,
Cheeks with a beauty that glorifies,
Tresses of sunlight, through and through,
Figure and form that we idolize,
Maid of the West-land, here's to you!

Hope that is broad as your face is rare,
Yearning that unto the uttermost cries,
Soul that itself is a breath of prayer,
Heaven-sent spirit in womanly guise;
Tender caresses that minimize
The labors of life with their pain and rue,
Loving affection that never dies—
Maid of the West-land, here's to you!

Courage that rises to do and dare,
Spell that entangles the sage and wise
From venturesome toe to your crown of hair
Ravishing beauties that hypnotize;
Many the man for your favor vies,
Well may he plead for the favor, too;
Twentieth Century's greatest prize—
Maid of the West-land, here's to you!

ENVOI.
Maid of the West, in your wistful eyes,
Tenderly deep as the western blue,
The glorious hope of our future lies—
Maid of the West-land, here's to you!

Pioneers! O Pioneers!

by Walt Whitman

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Come, my tan-faced children,
Follow well in order, get your weapons ready;
Have you your pistols? have you your sharp edged axes?
Pioneers! O pioneers!

For we cannot tarry here,
We must march my darlings, we must bear the brunt of danger,
We, the youthful sinewy races, all the rest on us depend,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

O you youths, western youths,
So impatient, full of action, full of manly pride and friendship,
Plain I see you, western youths, see you tramping with the foremost,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Have the elder races halted?
Do they droop and end their lesson, wearied, over there beyond the seas?
We take up the task eternal, and the burden, and the lesson,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

All the past we leave behind;
We debouch upon a newer, mightier world, varied world,
Fresh and strong the world we seize, world of labor and the march,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

We detachments steady throwing,
Down the edges, through the passes, up the mountains steep,
Conquering, holding, daring, venturing, as we go, the unknown ways,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

We primeval forests felling,
We the rivers stemming, vexing we, and piercing deep the mines within;
We the surface broad surveying, we the virgin soil upheaving,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Colorado men are we,
From the peaks gigantic, from the great sierras and the high plateaus,
From the mine and from the gully, from the hunting trail we come,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

From Nebraska, from Arkansas,
Central inland race are we, from Missouri, with the continental blood intervein’d;
All the hands of comrades clasping, all the Southern, all the Northern,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

O resistless, restless race!
O beloved race in all! O my breast aches with tender love for all!
O I mourn and yet exult—I am rapt with love for all,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Raise the mighty mother mistress,
Waving high the delicate mistress, over all the starry mistress, (bend your heads all,)
Raise the fang’d and warlike mistress, stern, impassive, weapon’d mistress,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

See, my children, resolute children,
By those swarms upon our rear, we must never yield or falter,
Ages back in ghostly millions, frowning there behind us urging,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

On and on, the compact ranks,
With accessions ever waiting, with the places of the dead quickly fill’d,
Through the battle, through defeat, moving yet and never stopping,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

O to die advancing on!
Are there some of us to droop and die? has the hour come?
Then upon the march we fittest die, soon and sure the gap is fill’d,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

All the pulses of the world,
Falling in, they beat for us, with the western movement beat;
Holding single or together, steady moving, to the front, all for us,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Life’s involv’d and varied pageants,
All the forms and shows, all the workmen at their work,
All the seamen and the landsmen, all the masters with their slaves,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

All the hapless silent lovers,
All the prisoners in the prisons, all the righteous and the wicked,
All the joyous, all the sorrowing, all the living, all the dying,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

I too with my soul and body,
We, a curious trio, picking, wandering on our way,
Through these shores, amid the shadows, with the apparitions pressing,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Lo! the darting bowling orb!
Lo! the brother orbs around! all the clustering suns and planets,
All the dazzling days, all the mystic nights with dreams,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

These are of us, they are with us,
All for primal needed work, while the followers there in embryo wait behind,
We to-day’s procession heading, we the route for travel clearing,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

O you daughters of the west!
O you young and elder daughters! O you mothers and you wives!
Never must you be divided, in our ranks you move united,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Minstrels latent on the prairies!
(Shrouded bards of other lands! you may sleep—you have done your work;)
Soon I hear you coming warbling, soon you rise and tramp amid us,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Not for delectations sweet;
Not the cushion and the slipper, not the peaceful and the studious;
Not the riches safe and palling, not for us the tame enjoyment,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Do the feasters gluttonous feast?
Do the corpulent sleepers sleep? have they lock’d and bolted doors?
Still be ours the diet hard, and the blanket on the ground,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Has the night descended?
Was the road of late so toilsome? did we stop discouraged, nodding on our way?
Yet a passing hour I yield you, in your tracks to pause oblivious,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Till with sound of trumpet,
Far, far off the day-break call—hark! how loud and clear I hear it wind;
Swift! to the head of the army!—swift! spring to your places,
Pioneers! O pioneers.

The Pioneers

by Hannah Flagg Gould

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Thy waves, proud OHIO, in majesty roll
Through banks with rich verdure and flowers filly dressed,
Like the strong tide of mind—like the bright flow of soul,
That heaves nobly on to the fair, blooming WEST.

Thy music is set to the motion of years,
Like thee, bearing down to a fathomless flood;
But ours, to the march of the bold PIONEERS,
Who purchased thy borders with peril and blood.

They fearless went forth where the red heathen foe
With tomahawk raised, as in ambush he lay,
And poison-tipped arrows to speed from his bow,
Concealed like a serpent, infested the way.

They saw the tall flame, when the council-fire glared
Along the deep gloom through the wilderness spread.
They heard the loud whoop, when the knife was prepared
Its trophy to cleave from the white victim's head!

The apple tree then, 'mid the trees of the wood,
They reared among savages human and brute,
And felled the dark forest around it that stood,
To let in the sun-beams, and ripen the fruit.

Their footsteps are traced by the lily and vine;
Where they lopped the boughs, stands the full-headed sheaf,
And here, from the pillow, the oil and the wine,
The weary find rest, and the wounded, relief.

Where all was in nature's first wildness and night,
Till they ventured forth, an invincible band,
The SUN of eternity pours down his light—
The beauty of holiness spreads o'er the land!

Roll on, proud OHIO! and long as the voice,
That sounds from thy waters posterity hears,
'T will come in bold numbers to hearts that rejoice,
In chorus responding, 'The brave PIONEERS!'

Westward Ho!

by Joaquin Miller

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What strength! what strife! what rude unrest!
What shocks! what half-shaped armies met!
A mighty nation moving west,
With all its steely sinews set
Against the living forests. Hear
The shouts, the shots of pioneer,
The rended forests, rolling wheels,
As if some half-check'd army reels,
Recoils, redoubles, comes again,
Loud sounding like a hurricane.

O bearded, stalwart, westmost men,
So tower-like, so Gothic built!
A kingdom won without the guilt
Of studied battle, that hath been
Your blood's inheritance....Your heirs
Know not your tombs: The great plowshares
Cleave softly through the mellow loam
Where you have made eternal home,
And set no sign. Your epitaphs
Are writ in furrows. Beauty laughs
While through the green ways wandering
Beside her love, slow gathering
White starry-hearted May-time blooms
Above your lowly level'd tombs;
And then below the spotted sky
She stops, she leans, she wonders why
The ground is heaved and broken so,
And why the grasses darker grow
And droop and trail like wounded wing.

Yea, Time, the grand old harvester,
Has gather'd you from wood and plain.
We call to you again, again;
The rush and rumble of the car
Comes back in answer. Deep and wide
The wheels of progress have passed on;
The silent pioneer is gone.
His ghost is moving down the trees,
And now we push the memories
Of bluff, bold men who dared and died
In foremost battle, quite aside.

Westward

by Ellen P. Allerton

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When eastern snows are melting and the south wind softly blows,
The old hives swarm, and westward the Star of Empire goes.
"Westward ho!" is ever the watchword of the spring;
As sure as birds fly northward, is this a settled thing.

'Tis heard again in autumn, when crops are gathered in—
When the corn is in the barn and the wheat is in the bin.
Westward, and ever westward, the long, white wagons creep,
Through towns and open country, and forests dark and deep.

Westward—women and children, bearded and stalwart men—
From stern New England hillside, from wild and rocky glen;
From steeps of the Alleghanies, where bleak winds fiercely blow;
And down whose crags of granite roll storms of sleet and snow.

Westward—from o'er the ocean a crowd comes pressing on,
Russian, Norwegian, German—all bloods under the sun
Here meet and mingle kindly. As all the world doth know,
When other lands are full, hither rolls the overflow.

Westward, and ever westward, the peaceful army comes—
Workmen for better wages, the homeless seeking homes;
Young men—life all before them, with all that life endears—
And old men, faint and weary, with the bootless toil of years.

Still they come, and still we greet them with the clasp of friendly hand;
Still they flood and swell our cities, still they spread across the land;
Westward, westward—led or followed by the headlight's ghostly gleam,
While lonely wilds are startled by the engine's eerie scream.

On bare, wide slopes the dug-out yields shelter safe and sure,
And from its fireside altar floats incense sweet and pure.
Beside the lowly door sits the grandsire old and gray,
While round him, tanned and merry, the barefoot children play.

The sod, upturned, wooes surely the sunshine and the rain;
Anon the swells are golden with seas of waving grain.
Where all was bare and barren, thick stand the clustered sheaves;
Where all was bare and treeless, winds whisper through the leaves.

Towns spring as by enchantment along the great frontier;
Where the owl dwelt silent, solemn, with the prairie dog last year,
Now stands the store and school house, and church with steeple white,
In a city reared by magic, like the gourd that grew in a night.

By Grandsire's Well

by Albina Brockway Letts

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"Westward Ho!" was the cry throughout the land,
And movers' wagons, as the seashore sands,
On each road were seen all the weary day;
And their canvas tops like the white-capped spray,
Westward rolled with a strong sweep, far and wide,
But never went back with the evening tide.
And while Grandsire sat 'neath the deep, green shade
Not far from the well, and the scene surveyed,
His little grandson rolled on the grass,
And watched the tired teams creeping past.
"Human nature's a study," Grandsire said,
As he softly nodded his hoary head;
"It's curious enough, how that straws will show,
As you've often heard, how the wind doth blow.
And I learn a good deal more than you'd think,
About the folks that come to the well for a drink."

One wagon had halted; the team was lean;
You could count their ribs and the spaces between;
Three dogs followed close, some guns were in view,
And fishing tackle in plenty, too.
Some frowsy children "withstanding a drouth,"
A frowsier mother, with pipe in her mouth,
And a long, lank man sauntered up to the well,
And nodded as his eye on Grandsire fell.
He paused and balanced the pail on the curb
While he answered Grandsire's greeting word:
"Yes, we're goin' out west, where things will grow
With half the work they do here, you know.
And if game is plenty we'uns 'low we'll find
A better place an' more to our mind.
Did I hate to leave? Wal—no, I can't say
That I fretted much 'bout comin' away,
For the land was foul or worn out, far an' near,
An' the weeds tuk our melons every year,
An' the neighbors never wuz much to my mind—
When we fust went thar they 'peared sorter kind,
But they didn't care much fur us arter while
When they foun' we wuz pore'n couldn't put on style.
Pore folks back thar don't have no show,
An' they never come near 'less someone wuz low.
Their stock broke into my 'taters an' corn—
Mine never teched their'n sure's you're born.
(To be sure, their fences wuz better'n mine,
An' they built most of th' division line);
They wouldn't go coonin' and didn't care shucks
Fur fishin', or huntin' fur rabbits an' ducks;
But we hope we'll find neighbors as good as the best
When we onct git settled out thar in the west."

"Nay, nay!" said Grandsire, "believe me, you'll see
That folks are alike wherever they be;
Selfish folks are plenty, and now, you mind,
Your neighbors will always be of that kind."

"Wal, that's 'bout my luck, but I'll be goin' along:
Shuah, all o' them dogs to me b'long,
Aax a fust-rate rifle an' a shot-gun too,
An' a fiddle to chirk us up when we're blue—
Yes, my bosses air powerful weak, an' one's lame—
Hope they tell us the truth 'bout western game;
When we git out into the huntin' groun'
We'll let 'em rest while we look aroun',
An' if the folks air lively an' full of fun,
I'll have good times yet, 'fore my day is done."

Grandsire pondered, and leaned on his stick
Till another team drew up for a drink.
The clean, bright children and a cow tied behind,
Proved them movers of quite a dififerent kind.
A strong, honest-faced man came up the walk
With a cheery "Good morning," and paused for a talk,
While the stout team drank and cooled in the shade,
And the children stretched their limbs and played;
While a clean, rosy woman her needles plied,
As she watched the children by the wagon's side.

Said Grandsire: "And why do you go out west?
Do you think that country so much the best?"
"Well, they say the land is cheap and rich,
With no grubbin' of stumps or diggin' o' ditch;
That there's a good chance for a poor man there,
And I'm willin' to work like a man for my share;
For we want to give the children a better show
Than we've ever had in the world, you know."

"Did you hate to leave the old home, my man?"
As Grandsire spoke, o'er the face of tan
A tremor fell; and a deep flush shone,
And his lip half quivered, then a sigh, half groan,
Came forth, as he nodded: "Indeed I did.
For I'd lived there all my life," he said;
"Yes, there were lots of things we hated to leave.
And some for which we will always grieve;
The bearing orchard, the brook by the road,
The smell of the meadow newly mowed,
The buryin' ground where father was laid
Close by where the baby's grave was made;
The poor old dog that we couldn't bring,
And e'en the old dipper down by the spring;
Most of all, the neighbors, young and old,
The best in the world, just as good as gold.
Before we left them last Thursday night,
They held prayer-meetin' at early candle-light;
And when they sang, 'Blest Be the Tie,'
Scarcely an eye in the house was dry;
And when they closed with 'My Christian friends,
In bonds of love,' until it ends
In, 'We must take the parting hand,'
My poor weak knees would hardly stand,
And I dropped down, and bending o'er,
My tears went splashin' on the floor.
They came in the morning we started away,
And when Deacon Bicknell knelt down to pray,
The Lord to preserve us in that strange land,
And hold us in the hollow of His hand,
We thought we'd rather live there on a stone,
Than go out to Paradise all alone.
They brought us fried chicken to eat on the road.
And beech-nuts and chestnuts to add to the load,
And doughnuts and pickles and cranberry sass,
And a great big sack of sassafras,
And cookies that were spiced with caraway seed,
And everything that movers could need;
And things we couldn't use, or save,
That we buried at night in the turnip cave.
No wonder, you see, I hated to leave,
For we never again will such neighbors have."

"Oh, yes! You'll have neighbors as good as can be,
And perhaps the old friends may sometime see,
You'll just such good Christians be sure to find.
Best of all, you didn't leave the Lord behind!"

No one could the gladsome truth withstand,
And as Grandsire held out his trembling hand,
The poor man took it in both his own,
While a strong thrill of courage came into his tone.
"Bless your heart ! That's true. Why, you do me good;
Tm afraid it's wicked, this sorrowful mood,
But I felt like a tree pulled out of the ground
With the roots all danglin' and limp around,
So I drank after the horses every day,
For they say you can cure home-sick, that way;
But I reckon I never have, 'til now,
Quit lookin' back with my hand on the plow.
Good-bye ! I'll be glad at the end of the route,
To find them good neighbors you're talkin' about;
We'll have a prayer-meeting and Sunday-school, too,
And no doubt find work for the Lord to do."

The little boy crept to his Grandsire's knee,
With eyes just as big as eyes could be;
"Oh, Gran'ther! I listened as still as the mice,
But you didn't say the same thing twice!"
And an awesome look in the sweet face grew.
For he couldn't see how both sayings were true:
And truth's foundations w^ere sorely assailed,
If Gran'ther's word one tittle had failed.
Grandsire held his hand, looked into his eyes
With clear, true gaze which no fraud could disguise,
And said: "It was all true, as I surely do know;
The first man was selfish and shiftless and low,
And the Good Book says, 'If a man would have friends
He must show himself friendly;' the Lord never sends
Good neighbors, or blessings, unless we can bear
Of kindness and labor an honest share.
The man who idles with dogs and guns,
Will be poor while grass grows and water runs;
But the other man was the salt of the earth;'
He'll have a sweet home and a clean, bright hearth,
And friends will flock to its warmth and cheer,
And love him still more, as year by year
He toils, and willingly takes a share
In the world's great burdens of labor and care;
He will share men's troubles and lighten their load,
By his Christian kindness along the road,
And though he will never be rich or grand,
He'll wield a man's power on every hand;
And he'll pity the sinner and teach God's word
And walk all his days in the ways of the Lord."

A light sweet as dreams of love in youth,
In the child's face grew as he saw the truth;
And glad and clear rang the voice of the lad:
"I'll have just such neighbors as that good man had!"

The Song of the Kansas Emigrant

by John Greenleaf Whittier

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Full Text

We cross the prairies as of old
The Pilgrims crossed the sea,
To make the West, as they the East,
The homestead of the free.

CHORUS
The homestead of the free, my boys,
The homestead of the free,
To make the West, as they the East,
The homestead of the free.

We go to rear a wall of men
On Freedom's Southern line,
And plant beside the cotton-tree
The rugged Northern pine.

We're flowing from our native hills,
As our free rivers flow;
The blessings of our mother-land
Is on us as we go.

We go to plant her common schools
On distant prairie swells,
And give the Sabbaths of the wild
The music of her bells.

Upbearing, like the ark of old,
The Bible in her van,
We go to test the truth of God
Against the fraud of man.

No pause, nor rest, save where the streams
That feed the Kansas run,
Save where our pilgrim gonfalon
Shall flout the setting sun.

We'll tread the prairies as of old
Our fathers sailed the sea;
And make the West, as they the East,
The homestead of the free.

The Oregon Trail

by Arthur Guiterman

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Full Text

Two hundred wagons, rolling out to Oregon,
Breaking through the gopher holes, lurching wide and free,
Crawling up the mountain pass, jolting, grumbling, rumbling on,
Two hundred wagons, rolling to the sea.

From East and South and North they flock, to muster, row on row,
A fleet of tenscore prairie ships beside Missouri's flow.
The bullwhips crack, the oxen strain, the canvas-hooded files
Are off upon the long, long trail of sixteen hundred miles.

The women hold the guiding lines; beside the rocking steers
With goad and ready rifle walk the bearded pioneers
Through clouds of dust beneath the sun, through floods of sweeping rain
Cross the Kansas prairie land, across Nebraska's plain.

Two hundred wagons, rolling out to Oregon,
Curved round the campfire flame at halt when day is done,
Rest awhile beneath the stars, yoke again and lumber on,
Two hundred wagons, rolling with the sun.

Among the barren buttes they wind beneath the jealous view
Of Blackfoot, Pawnee, Omaha, Arapahoe, and Sioux.
No savage threat may check their course, no river deep and wide;
They swim the Platte, they ford the Snake, they cross the Great Divide.
They march as once from India's vales through Asia's mountain door
With shield and spear on Europe's plain their fathers marched before.
They march where leap the antelope and storm the buffalo
Still westward as their fathers marched ten thousand years ago.

Two hundred wagons, rolling out to Oregon,
Creeping down the dark defile below the mountain crest,
Surging through the brawling stream, lunging, plunging, forging on,
Two hundred wagons, rolling toward the West.

Now toils the dusty caravan with swinging wagon-poles
Where Walla Walla pours along, where broad Columbia rolls.
The long-haired trapper's face grows dark and scowls the painted brave;
Where now the beaver builds his dam the wheat and rye shall wave.
The British trader shakes his head and weighs his nation's loss,
For where those hardy settlers come the Stars and Stripes will toss.
Then block the wheels, unyoke the steers; the prize is his who dares;
The cabins rise, the fields are sown, and Oregon is theirs!

They will take, they will hold,
By the spade in the mold,
By the seed in the soil,
By the sweat and the toil,
By the plow in the loam,
By the school and the home!

Two hundred wagons, rolling out to Oregon,
Two hundred wagons, ranging free and far,
Two hundred wagons, rumbling, grumbling, rolling on,
Two hundred wagons, following a star!

The Westerner

by Charles Badger Clark

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Full Text

My fathers sleep on the sunrise plains,
And each one sleeps alone.
Their trails may dim to the grass and rains,
For I choose to make my own.
I lay proud claim to their blood and name,
But I lean on no dead kin;
My name is mine, for the praise or scorn,
And the world began when I was born
And the world is mine to win.

They built high towns on their old log sills,
Where the great, slow rivers gleamed,
But with new, live rock from the savage hills
I'll build as they only dreamed.
The smoke scarce dies where the trail camp lies,
Till the rails glint down the pass;
The desert springs into fruit and wheat
And I lay the stones of a solid street
Over yesterday's untrod grass.

I waste no thought on my neighbor's birth
Or the way he makes his prayer.
I grant him a white man's room on earth
If his game is only square.
While he plays it straight I'll call him mate;
If he cheats I drop him flat.
Old class and rank are a wornout lie,
For all clean men are as good as I,
And a king is only that.

I dream no dreams of a nurse-maid state
That will spoon me out my food.
A stout heart sings in the fray with fate
And the shock and sweat are good.
From noon to noon all the earthly boon
That I ask my God to spare
Is a little daily bread in store,
With the room to fight the strong for more,
And the weak shall get their share.

The sunrise plains are a tender haze
And the sunset seas are gray,
But I stand here, where the bright skies blaze
Over me and the big today.
What good to me is a vague "may be"
Or a mournful "might have been,"
For the sun wheels swift from morn to morn
And the world began when I was born
And the world is mine to win.

The Prairie Schooner

by Charles Moreau Harger

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Full Text

Slow was the weary, toilsome way
Where creaked the heavy wain,—
Quaint follower of the speeding day
Across the plain.

White canvas covers, bulging, fair,
Enclosed fond hearts athrob with joy;
The builders of an empire there
Found safe convoy.

Along its course child-voices sweet
Marked all the strangeness of each scene;
While parents sought new homes to greet
With vision keen.

No luxury or ease was there
To lap the traveler into rest,
But staunch it bore the pioneer
On toward the West.

Deserted now, its ragged sails
Are furled—the port has long been won.
Sport of the boisterous, hurrying gales,
Through cloud and sun.

Unused, forlorn, and gray, it stands,
A faded wreck cast far ashore,
The Mayflower of the prairie lands,
Its journey o'er.

The "Prairie Schooner"

by Evander A. Crewson

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Through our town one April afternoon,
A "prairie schooner" wound its western way;
The driver humming to himself a tune,
The children playing on a pile of hay.

The mother, "chillin'," in a blanket wrapped,
Slowly fed as fuel, insidious disease;
While the curtains cracked and napped
In the cool south-western breeze.

Behind, two yellow dogs, lank and lean,
Dodged the urchins' sticks and stones;
Or along some alley might be seen
Hunting for stray crumbs and bones.

The horses' looks, in silence plead for corn,
But weary plod along with fading hope;
Behind, a brindle cow with broken horn
Slowly followed up a piece of rope.

I watched them slowly wind the hill,
And away as far as I could see;
With no ambition, and scarce no will,
I wondered what the end would be.

That scene in my memory seemed to freeze.
Though years have rolled by one by one,
I see those curtains flapping in the breeze,
Slowly wending towards the setting sun.

The Prairie-Schooner

Carl Holliday

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Full Text

All day the creeping caravan
Wound on its serpent-trailing way;
A thousand miles of wind-swept tan,
A thousand miles of cloudless gray.

Beneath the quivering summer-heat
The prairie-schooner creaked afar;
Some day, some time, the trail would meet
The Setting Sun, the Golden Bar.

The course is done; the servant old
Long stood in shivering rags, and gazed
Upon the mansions built of gold;
All wondering, by their splendor dazed.

The course is done; yet on and on
Beyond Time's wavering shadow-line
The prairie-schooner long has gone,
Forsaken, lost, with ne'er a shrine.

The Pioneers

by Herbert Bates

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Full Text

Pale in the east a filmy moon
Creeps up the empty sky,
And the pallid prairie rounds bleak below,
And we wonder that we are here; and the thin winds sigh
Through the broken stalks of the sunflowers that wait to die,
And the sun is gone, and the darkness begins to grow,
And out on the shadowy plains we hear the coyote's cry.

Out of the dark of the prairie plains—
What lurks in the darkened plains?
It is there that the coyote howls,
It is there that the Indian prowls,
Sinewy-footed, alert,
Watching to do us hurt;
And the sombre buffalo
Pace, ominous and slow,
With their black beards trailing low
Over the sifting snow.
And we, we cower and shake,
Lying all night awake,—
We in our little sod-built hut in the heart of the plain.

God guard us, and make vain
The wiles of the Indian foe;
God show us how to go,
And lead us in again
Out of the dread of the plain,
Home to the mountains and hills that our childhood knew,
Where over the sombre pine trees the sea shines blue.

Crossing the Plains

by Joaquin Miller

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Full Text

What great yoked brutes with briskets low,
With wrinkled necks like buffalo,
With round, brown, liquid, pleading eyes,
That turn'd so slow and sad to you,
That shone like love's eyes soft with tears,
That seem'd to plead, and make replies,
The while they bow'd their necks and drew
The creaking load; and look'd at you.
Their sable briskets swept the ground,
Their cloven feet kept solemn sound.

Two sullen bullocks led the line,
Their great eyes shining bright like wine;
Two sullen captive kings were they,
That had in time held herds at bay,
And even now they crush'd the sod
With stolid sense of majesty,
And stately stepp'd and stately trod,
As if 'twere something still to be
Kings even in captivity.

The Trail of '49

by Ellen P. Allerton

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Full Text

Across the prairie where I dwell,
Stretches away, from swell to swell,
A road that might a story tell.

The track is wide and deeply cut
By wheels of heavy wagons, but
The rank grass grows in seam and rut.

'Tis the old trail of "Forty-Nine;"—
Thus history, in graven line,
Has stamped this prairie home of mine.

The years have passed with snow and rain,
And mighty frosts upheaved—in vain—
For still this track shows clear and plain.

Tracing it where it winds away,
There comes to me at twilight gray,
A vision of another day.

I see the covered wagons go,
Across the prairie toiling slow,
Through the dreary storm, through summer glow.

I see them with their human freight—
Hearts throbbing high with hope elate—
Pass onward to a doubtful fate.

Months pass: a weary, jaded train,
Worn with fatigue, disease and pain,
Creeps slowly o'er a desert plain.

Above, a cloudless, burning sky;
Below, naught greets the weary eye,
Save wastes of sand and alkali.

No rain descends, no water flows;
No cool trees bsnd, no green thing grows;
Yet still that sad train onward goes.

Fatigue and thirst! No tongue can tell
The victim's anguish, fierce and fell—
His fondest dream a bubbling well.

And some go mad and wildly rave;
Some find what, at the last, they crave,
The silence of a desert grave.

The living speak in husky tones;
The poor brutes drop with piteous moans;
The track is paved with bleaching bones.

Still onward—slower and more slow—
Dogged nightly by a stealthy foe,
Toward mountain passes chocked with snow.

One sleeps, to dream of home and wife;
He wakes, at call to midnight strife
With tomahawk and scalping knife.

********

Past perils, miseries untold,
Past desert heat, past mountains cold,
What waits them in the land of gold?

Go, search a checkered history
Of soon-got hoards, as soon to flee,
Of princely wealth and poverty.

Dark tales of crime, of murders fell,
Of drunken brawl, of gambling hell—
Good chroniclers have told them well.

Go, search them all, through every line—
Yet deign to read this tale of mine,
Of the old trail of "Fortv-Nine."

The Santa Fe Trail

by Ed Blair. Written on the dedication of the marker on the Santa Fe Trail at Lone Elm, Johnson County, Kansas.

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Fifty years—'Twas a prairie then
And the deer roamed wild and free;
Fifty years—I see it again
As it appeared to me.
The old trail ran where the barn stands now,
The trail was here long before the plow,
And we drove ox teams with sometimes a cow,
In the days that use to be.

Fifty years—Yes I lived here then
And a lively place 'twas too.
Wagons for miles with their fearless men
Coming and passing from view.
On the wagon covers "Pike's Peak or bust!"
Yes, the fever was high for the yellow dust
Just a lot of grit and then their luck to trust,
For those that won were few.

Fifty years—'Twas a camping ground
Where the trees now cast their shade,
And the faithful oxen rambled around
And rarely if ever strayed,
And the camp fires burned each night of the year
In the pastures there and the cornfields here,
Yet I slept each night with never a fear,
And many the friends I made.

Yes, fifty years—What a striking change
From the way we do things now,
No less these farms from the boundless ran
Or the way we sow and plow
The sickle is gone and the binder's here,
But the sickle still to my heart is dear,
But I look in vain for the roving deer
And the prairie chicken now.

Fifty years—Ah, I love to know
That the old trail shall remain,
That the markers tell in the years to go
Where the ox teams crossed the plain
Of the men who travelled the toilsome way
But few are left to tell it today,
But their march was Progress on its way,
And its glory ne'er shall wane.

The Pioneer Store

by Ed Blair

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Full Text

The counters were not polished (only where the loafers sat),
But little light shone through the window small,
A sack of Rio coffee made a snug bed for the cat,
The shelves extended haft way up the wall.
'Twas just a "general" country store, at least they called it so,
Perhaps because they generally were out
Of what the people wanted, and the customer must go
With things with which they often were in doubt.

But stores are only ventures and the first must feel its way
And this was like all others of its kind;
Some groceries and hardware, just enough to load a dray,
Was largely then with what the shelves were lined.
But there was more than merchandise dispensed there ev'ry day,
When settlers from the Wea and Ten Mile,
And roaring, raging Bull Creek, and the Blue, ten miles away,
Spat on the stove and visited awhile.

The Old Country Store

by Ed Blair

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Oh, the old country store with the candy jars in it,
And the bag of green coffee that sat by the door;
The barrel of sorghum with plug driven in it,
That leaked every hour a few drops on the floor.
The barrel of crackers with cover beside it,
The cheese, where a patron could pilfer a bite.
The jugs and the jars with the straw in between them,
When I was a boy 'twas a source of delight.

Piled up on the counter, the "hickory shirting"—
A stripe and a plaid for the patrons to choose.
Some featherproof ticking, some ducking for "breeches,"
Some calicos, ginghams, a few pairs of shoes,
A barrel of kraut never spoiled in the making,
How good it did taste when I tiptoed a wee,
And the "gingersnap cookies" that came in the boxes,
What a treat to have one of them given to me.

The old country store, what a charm to the youngster
The hogshead of sugar (sometimes mixed with sand),
And if I was there when the "store man" was opening,
A lump of its sweetness was placed in my hand.
The coffee pots stood in a row on the shelving,
The old iron boilers and tubs down below,
A can of gunpowder and shot for the hunters
And the "waterproof" caps that ofttimes wouldn't go.

Oh, the old country store, what a joy there to visit
With postoffice boxes, 'mong cobwebs galore,
That gave us the letters and papers on Monday,
That rode in the mails for a fortnight or more.
Oh, never a city with street cars and bridges
And viaducts, factories—yea, all of these,
Can e'er beat the store at the cross roads on Cow creek
Where first I bought candy and crackers and cheese.

The Pony Express

Arthur Chapman

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Full Text

The eddies swirl in the treacherous ford,
And the clouds gather dark ahead.
And over the plain, where the sunlight poured,
Scarce a gleam does the pale moon shed.

The pony drinks, but with gasp and sob,
And wan is the man at its side;
The way has been long, past butte and knob,
And still he must ride and ride.

Now the cinch is drawn and the plunge is made,
And the bank of the stream is gained;
Eyes study the darkness, unafraid,
And ne’er is the good horse reined.

And the hoof-beats die on the prairie vast,
To the lone wolf’s answering wail—
Thus the ghost of the Pony Express goes past
On the grass-grown Overland Trail.

The Old Sheep Wagon

Arthur Chapman

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Full Text

I have heard men long for a palace, but I want no such abode,
For wealth is a source of trouble, and a jeweled crown is a load;
I'll take my home in the open, with a mixture of sun and rain—
Just give me my old sheep wagon, on the boundless Wyoming plain.

With the calling sheep around me, and my collie's head on my knees,
I float my cigarette smoke on the sage-scented prairie breeze;
And at night, when the band is bedded, I creep, like a tired child,
To my tarp, in the friendly wagon, alone on the sheep range wild.

Music and art I am missing?—but what great symphony
Can equal the harps of nature that are twanged by the plains-wind free?
And where is the master of color to match, though for years he tried,
The purples that veil yon mesa, at the hour of eventide?

I have had my fill of mankind, and my dog is my only friend,
So I'm waiting, here in the sagebrush, for the judgment the Lord may send;
They'll find me dead in my wagon, out here on the hilltops brown,
But I reckon I'll die as easy as I would in a bed in town!

The Homestead

by M. P. A. Crozier

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Full Text

The years, like humming birds,
Just poised a moment on the wing,
To sip the nectar from the cup
Of life's sweet offering;

The homestead's old familiar halls,
The grassy meadow where I played,
The orchard with its melting fruit,
And soft refreshing shade;

The blacksmith-shop where, all day long,
My noble father toiled and sang,
Where in the morning and at eve,
The music of the anvil rang;

The garden with its spreading vines,
Its roses and its daffodils;
The dark old forest in the east;
Beyond the heaven-aspiring hills.

A Home out West

by Ellen P. Allerton

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Full Text

I
A "Prairie schooner," creeping slow,
Away-worn, jaded household band,
In eager voices speaking low—
Thus enter we the "Promised land."
Behind us now the river's tide,
Rolls dark and murk, deep and wide.

*****

II
A warm May day; a sweet soft rain
On a green prairie falling fast;
A stopping of the creeping wane,
And the glad cry, "we are home at last."
After long weeks of travel sore,
The goal is won; we ask no more.

Home! With our roof the dripping sky,
Our floor the rainsoaked prairie's breast!
Through all the wastes that round us lie,
In wild, luxuriant verdure dressed,
No tree extends its friendly bough,
We seek no track of spade or plow.

*****

III
A year has fled. What wondrous change
Has passed this way? What sorcery,
What silent magic, swift and strange,
Has wrought such wonders? Come and see!
Where are the green wastes, soaked with rain?
You seek them? You shall seek in vain.

Spring smiles again; the sunbeams play
On gabled roof and crystal pane.
Spring smiles again; and skies of May
Bend o'er broad fields of waving grain.
Here are young orchards; and the breeze
Bends the lithe limbs of forest trees.

The spring rains beat on snowy walls,
Comely, though plain, snug built and strong;
Through vine wreathed windows sunshine falls,
With cheerful smile, the whole day long;
And happy faces, fresh and bright,
Are gathered around the lamps at night.

Our prairie home is sweet and dear;
The deep rich soil holds honest wealth,
The airs we breathe are pure and clear;
The free, strong winds waft life and health.
Here dwells content from day to day;
So—let the great world go its way

The Sod House on the Claim

by Susannah Williams

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Full Text

Now come dear children and I'll tell
About the mansion where we dwell;
It is a sod house on the flat,
And we are staying now in that.

Now I will tell you how 'tis made,
The sod is cut with plow and spade,
Some two feet long and one foot wide.
and then are laid down side by side.

The next round now as up we go
Is laid on crosswise in a row;
(They lay the sod across that way
So that it will be sure to stay.)

When high enough the walls are done
And they then roll a huge log on.
The gable-ends they then fill out,
And trim the structure round about.

Our ridge-pole is a cottonwood log
Some sixteen inches through,
And on this pole the rafters lay
With small brush next in view.

Now on this brush they lay more sod
To make it snug and firm.
And then on that they throw more dirt
To keep it dry and warm.

It now appears so very nice,
It keeps us snug and warm.
It shelters us from wintry blasts
And from the frozen storm.

Now then inside they go to work.
They cut and trim the wall.
Then over that spread lime and sand
So that the dirt won't fall.

There's one thing more for you to know
That I will try to tell.
The windows are so very nice
In this place where we dwell.

Up from the floor they're three feet high
(That is up to the sill)
And then the wall is cut around
The space the windows fill.

Now then these windows are so nice
(They look that way to me).
And they afford abundant light
For all within to see.

Our floor it was but common earth,
'Twas here before we came
And on it then the grass did grow
For us to walk upon.

But we have got a pine floor now
and doing very well.
But how much longer we will stay
I really cannot tell.

There's one thing more I have to fear
Snakes and lizards both are here.
With other reptiles not a few
That frequently appear in view.

I've penned these verses now for you.
Well knowing they are strictly true.
And after you have read them through
I hope you'll think that they will do.

The Sod House on the Prairie

*The Homestead and Building of the Barbed Wire Fence*
by John Steuart Curry

by Ellen P. Allerton

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A low sod house, a broad green prairie,
And stately ranks of bannered corn;—
'Twas there I took my dark-eyed Mary,
And there our darling boy was born.

The walls were low, the place was homely,
But Mary sang from morn till night.
The place beneath her touch grew comely;
Her cheerful presence made it bright.

Oh, life was sweet beyond all measure!
No hour was dull, no day was long;
Each task was easy, toil was pleasure,
For love and hope were fresh and strong.

How oft we sat at eve, foretelling
The glories of that wide, new land!
And gayly planned our future dwelling—
For low sod house, a mansion grand.

Alas! we little know how fleeting
The joy that falls to human lot.
While unseen hands were dirges beating,
We smiled secure and heard them not.

One day Death came and took my Mary;
Another, and the baby died.
And near the sod house on the prairie
I laid my darlings, side by side.

I could not stay. My heart was weary,
And life a load too hard to bear.
That low sod house was dreary, dreary,
For love and hope lay buried there.

My Old Prairie Home

by Ed Blair

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Dear old home of my youth in the long, long ago,
Where the sunshine each morn filled the air,
Where the meadow lark rose from the tall prairie grass
As it warbled its sweet carols there.
Oh I think of that home dear old home far away
That was then on the wild prairie wide,
Where each night I was tucked in the old trundle bed
On the floor by the old fireside.

In my fancy I see once again the old home,
Dear log house father built long ago,
Its steep roof made of slabs and its chimney of stone,
With my name roughly carved below.
There it stood many years ere another was built
On the prairie around anywhere,
And its light was a guide to the traveler lone,
And its doors ever welcomed him there.

There at night music sweet from the old violin
Floated out on the sweet, balmy air,
While I drifted to sleep in the old trundle bed—
Peaceful sleep without ever a care.
Oh bring back again the old home of my youth
Where the grass rolled like waves of the sea,
Where the dear wild flowers bloomed, where the lark sang so sweet,
Oh my old prairie home let me see!

There the low muffled tone of the prairie hen's mate
Floated in from the prairie around,
And away in the distance the wild deer roamed free,
Then unknown the fierce bay of the hound,
And at noon dear Bob White from the hedge piped his strain,
Coming night brought the dove's mournful lay,
And the song of the cricket and Katy-did rang
From the grass till the breaking of day.

The Old Windmill

by Clarence Albert Murch

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Battered windmill, old and gray,
Swinging there athwart the sky,
Sport of every idle breeze
That may chance to wander by.
Blow they fair or blow they foul,
Still you wag your dingy cowl
Through the livelong night and day,
Weather-beaten, old and gray.

Is that endless monotone—
Half a shriek and half a groan—
That in dreary cadence drones
From your old rheumatic bones,
Echo of some sylvan tune,
Or forgotten forest rune
From the aisles of long ago,
Calling, calling, soft and low
Through the banished years that creep
Back to some old forest dim,
Where the woodland zephyrs sweep
Dancing leaf and swaying limb?

As the lazy breezes blow
All your gaunt arms to and fro,
Swinging ever round and round,
To that weird, unearthly sound,
Do you ever wish that some
Wandering Don Quixote of wind
With its stormy lance might come—
End that weary, ceaseless grind?

Life is like a windmill gray,
Swinging ’twixt the earth and sky;
Sport of every passing breeze
That may chance to wander by.
Still we grind with smile or scowl,
Blow they fair or blow they foul;
Sure that we shall be some day,
Weather-beaten, old and gray.

The Wolves

by Elizabeth Madox Roberts

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When Grandmother Polly had married and gone,
But before her father had given her Clem,
Or Joe, or Sandy, or Evaline-
Before he had given her any of them,

She used to live in a far-away place,
In a little cabin that was her home,
And all around were bushes and trees,
And the wolves could come.

At night they ran down out of the rocks
And bristled up their trembly fur.
They came and howled by Polly's door
And showed their little white teeth at her.

Lincoln

by Annette Wynne

A log cabin, rude and rough—
This was house and home enough
For one small boy; there in the chimney place
With glowing face
The eager young eyes learned to trace
Staunch old tales of staunch old men;
In the firelight there and then
The soul of Lincoln grew—
And no one knew!
Only the great and bitter strife
Of later days brought into life
Great deeds that blossomed in the gloom
Of that dim shadowy firelit room.

The Planting of the Cottonwood Tree

by Ed Blair

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The building of the cabin home,
The planting of the trees,
The breaking of the virgin soil—
What tender memories!
What stories, told of other days,
Come drifting back to me,
I think this one the best of all,
The planting of this tree.

A little sprout she carried there
When first the home was bought,
For mother said "a treeless home
Was such a lonely spot."
And by the door where summer's breeze
Would tune its leaves to song
She planted it and nourished till
Its roots grew firm and strong.

Dear cottonwood, so lovely then,
How wide and tall it grew.
What joy to those long absent when
Its top first came to view!
A sentinel it seemed to be
That stood majestic there,
And guarded those who dwelt within
That dear old home so fair.

'Twas mother's tree! And it has stood
For thirty years or more,
Where loving hands had planted it
Beside that cottage door.
The song-birds came and nested there,
And 'neath its cooling shade,
The boys and girls that blessed the home
Their first playhouses made.

The Song of the Pioneer

by William Steward Gordon

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I would sing a song for the pioneer,
That sturdy soul and bold,
Whose rugged worth to the western world
Has never half been told.

With buckskin leggins, belt and knife,
And trusted rifle true,
He coped with nature, beasts, and men,
And came out victor, too.

He often ate but once a day,
And shivered in the rain,
But whistled till the sun came out,
Nor thought of it again.

But the panorama changes soon—
The trappers disappear—
For red adventure is not all
That makes a pioneer.

Methinks I see a cattle team
Crawl up the Rocky's crest,
And with its freight a wife and child
And the future of the West.

O'er alkali, o'er marsh and moor,
And roaring canyons deep,
Mid panther screams and Indian yells
Their lonely camp they keep.

And suns they rise and suns they set,
But westward still and on,
Till the road fades into a winding trail,
And the trail itself is gone.

Through bristling forest dense and dim
They hew a path to the sea,
And blaze a way for the march of men
And the millions yet to be.

For civilization followed fast
These men of brawn and brain,
And o'er their trail the iron horse
Soon galloped with his train.

Their fathers won the eastern coast,
With its barren hills and ice,
But these subdued a better land—
The western paradise.

But where are now those fearless souls
Of fifty-two and three?
Meek, Nesmith, Lee, and Applegate,
And a score of their degree?

They rode the gaunt, black horse of death
Over the great divide—
They scaled the purple peaks of time
And camped on the farther side.

And only a remnant now remains
Of the men of '53,
But the work they did will stand secure
Till time has ceased to be.

Then let us lift our hats to them,
Nor stop the falling tear,
And pay our debt of gratitude
To the honored pioneer.

The Early Days

by Robert J. C. Stead

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Yes, times have changed since the early days and things are different now;
We used to tramp from dawn to dusk in the trail of a walking-plough,
And sow our grain from a canvas sack with a barrel-hoop for a mouth,
And we kind o' felt that Providence controlled the frost and drouth;
And in the harvest work we always neighbored forth and back,
And never thought of threshing till the grain was in the stack;
And hauled our wood in the winter-time, and smoked beside the fire,
And felt our lot was everything that reason could desire.

True, we had little money; our homes were plain and bare;
Maybe a box for a table, maybe a block for a chair;
Straw to repose our bodies at the end of the well-worked day,
And the stars saw through the knot-holes in the shingles where we lay;
Food that was mostly our raising, coffee from toasted wheat,
Cottonade for our Sunday suits, moccasins for our feet.
Hard were our frames with labor, knotted our hands with toil.
And we went to bed at twilight to save the price of oil.

Hardship? Perhaps, but old-timers look back at the early days,
Before we had come to realize that practical farming pays,
Back at the times we were all so poor that none of us thought of wealth,
Back at the times when we found content in industry and health,
Back at the nights in the shanty, when the wolves howled in the snow,
Back at the old sod stable and the cattle in a row,
Back at the distances still unmapped, at the trails that were still untrod,
When round about were the wastes of earth and overhead was God.

Yes, times have changed since the early days; farming is now an art;
They're coming for land in motor cars—but we came in a cart—
They're tearing the prairie with steam and gas, turning the rivers loose
To water the arid regions and bring them into use;
Binding the earth with railway lines, netting the world with wires,
Leaving the mail at our corner-posts, pampering our desires;
They show us that times are better, prove it a thousand ways,
But we think of the old-time comradeship and sigh for the early days.

The Pioneers' Anniversary

by Ed Blair

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The years are passing, Nancy,
Yes, the years are passing fast,
The year just gone it seems to me
Went quicker than the last.
Our heads are tingeing now with gray,
Our steps not quite so sure,
But then I'm not complaining, Dear,
For blessings still endure.
We'll have the children here again,
Yes, all of them today
Except the little one, once ours,
Once ours, now passed away.

How fast the years are flying now
What changes swift they bring
Sweet joy to some, to others pain,
Worse than the adder's sting.
Ah! well for us, yes, well, indeed,
We cannot know today,
The joys or griefs that future days
Have for us stored away.
An angel hand may guide us yet,
For years before we part,
The hands of friends be needed soon
To bind a broken heart.

The Deserted Cabin

by Ruby Archer

Lone, it lingers on the mountain
With no sign or sound of life;
No sweet, happy, household cadence,
Laugh of child or song of wife.
How it stares adown the valley
With those hard and hollow eyes,
As if waiting, empty-hearted,
Hopeless, for some sweet surprise.
All the doors have broken hinges,
Rails have fallen from the fence;
High the dove-cote leans, abandoned,
Lonely birds have wandered hence.
Mosses creep through every crevice,
Sunshine bars the vacant floor,
And a yellow ox-eyed daisy
Peeps in wonder through the door.
Yonder windmill turning, turning,
In the old accustomed way,
Feels a sympathy in moving
With the winds that sigh alway:
"We have lost the waving tresses
Of a little golden head.
We can find no touch responsive.—
All but memory is dead."

On Crossing the Alleghanies

by Laura M. Thurston

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The broad, the bright, the glorious West,
Is spread before me now!
Where the gray mists of morning rest
Beneath yon mountain’s brow!
The bound is past—the goal is won—
The region of the setting sun
Is open to my view.
Land of the valiant and the free—
My own Green Mountain land—to thee,
And thine, a long adieu!

I hail thee, Valley of the West,
For what thou yet shalt be!
I hail thee for the hopes that rest
Upon thy destiny
Here—from this mountain height, I see
Thy bright waves floating to the sea,
Thine emerald fields outspread,
And feel that in the book of fame,
Proudly shall thy recorded name
In later days be read.

Yet while I gaze upon thee now,
All glorious as thou art,
A cloud is resting on my brow,
A weight upon my heart.
To me—in all thy youthful pride—
Thou art a land of cares untried,
Of untold hopes and fears.
Thou art—yet not for thee I grieve;
But for the far-off land I leave,
I look on thee with tears.

O! brightly, brightly glow thy skies,
In summer’s sunny hours!
The green earth seems a paradise
Arrayed in summer flowers!
But oh! there is a land afar
Whose skies to me are brighter far,
Along the Atlantic shore!
For eyes beneath their radiant shrine,
In kindlier glances answered mine—
Can these their light restore?

Upon the lofty bound I stand,
That parts the East and West;
Before me—lies a fairy land;
Behind—a home of rest!
Here, hope her wild enchantment flings,
Portrays all bright and lovely things,
My footsteps to allure—
But there, in memory’s light, I see
All that was once most dear to me—
My young heart’s cynosure!

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Prairie Poems

Pioneer Poems

Prairie Poems

Pioneer Poems

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