Part 34 (2/2)

Men of Harlan. [William Aspinwall Bradley]

Here in the level country, where the creeks run straight and wide, Six men upon their pacing nags may travel side by side.

But the mountain men of Harlan, you may tell them all the while, When they pa.s.s through our village, for they ride in single file.

And the children, when they see them, stop their play and stand and cry, ”Here come the men of Harlan, men of Harlan, riding by!”

O the mountain men of Harlan, when they come down to the plain, With dangling stirrup, jangling spur, and loosely hanging rein, They do not ride, like our folks here, in twos and threes abreast, With merry laughter, talk and song, and lightly spoken jest; But silently and solemnly, in long and straggling line, As you may see them in the hills, beyond Big Black and Pine.

For, in that far strange country, where the men of Harlan dwell, There are no roads at all, like ours, as we've heard travelers tell.

But only narrow trails that wind along each shallow creek, Where the silence hangs so heavy, you can hear the leathers squeak.

And there no two can ride abreast, but each alone must go, Picking his way as best he may, with careful steps and slow,

Down many a shelving ledge of shale, skirting the trembling sands, Through many a pool and many a pa.s.s, where the mountain laurel stands So thick and close to left and right, with holly bushes, too, The clinging branches meet midway to bar the pa.s.sage through, -- O'er many a steep and stony ridge, o'er many a high divide, And so it is the Harlan men thus one by one do ride.

Yet it is strange to see them pa.s.s in line through our wide street, When they come down to sell their sang, and buy their stores of meat, These silent men, in sombre black, all clad from foot to head, Though they have left their lonely hills and the narrow creek's rough bed.

And 't is no wonder children stop their play and stand and cry: ”Here come the men of Harlan, men of Harlan, riding by.”

Have you an Eye. [Edwin Ford Piper]

Have you an eye for the trails, the trails, The old mark and the new?

What scurried here, what loitered there, In the dust and in the dew?

Have you an eye for the beaten track, The old hoof and the young?

Come name me the drivers of yesterday, Sing me the songs they sung.

O, was it a schooner last went by, And where will it ford the stream?

Where will it halt in the early dusk, And where will the camp-fire gleam?

They used to take the shortest cut The cattle trails had made; Get down the hill by the easy slope To the water and the shade.

But it's barbed wire fence, and section line, And kill-horse travel now; Scoot you down the canyon bank, -- The old road's under plough.

Have you an eye for the laden wheel, The worn tire or the new?

Or the sign of the prairie pony's hoof Was never trimmed for shoe?

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