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My
father was a mountaineer,
His
fist was a mighty hammer.
He
was quick on his feet like a running deer,
And
he spoke with a Yankee stammer.
My
mother she was merry and brave,
And
so she came to her labor,
With
a tall green fir for her doctor grave,
And
a stream for her comforting neighbor.
And
some are wrapped in linen fine,
And
some like a godling’s scion.
But
I was cradled on twigs of pine,
In
the skin of a mountain lion.
And
some remember a white starched lap
And
ewer with silver handles.
But
I remember a coonskin cap,
And
the smell of bayberry candles.
The
cabin walls with the bark still rough,
And
my mother who laughed at trifles,
And
the tall, lank visitors, brown as snuff,
With
their long, straight squirrel-rifles.
I
can still hear them dance, like a foggy
song,
Through
the deepest one of my slumbers,
The
fiddle squeaking the boots along,
And
my father calling the numbers.
The
quick feet shaking the puncheon-floor,
And
the fiddle squeaking and squealing,
‘Till
the dry herbs rattled above the door,
And
the dust went up to the ceiling.
There
are some children lucky from dawn
‘till dusk,
But
never a child so lucky!
For
I cut my teeth on Money-Musk
In
the Bloody Ground of Kentucky!
When
I grew tall as the Indian corn,
My
father had little to lend me.
But
he gave me his great old powder horn
And
his woodsman’s skills to befriend me.
With
a leather shirt to cover my back
And
a redskin’s nose to unravel
Each
forest sign, I carried my pack
As
far as a scout could travel.
‘Till
I lost my boyhood and found my wife,
A
girl like a Salem clipper!
A
woman as straight as a hunting knife
With
eyes as bright as the Dipper!
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We
cleared our camp where the buffalo feed.
Unheard
of streams were our flagons.
And
I sowed my sons like the apple-seed
On
the trail of the Western wagons.
They
were right, tight boys, never sulky or
slow,
A
fruitful, a goodly muster!
The
eldest died at the Alamo,
The
youngest fell with Custer.
The
letter that told it burned my hand.
Yet
we smiled and said, “So be it!”
But
I could not live when they fenced the
land,
For
it broke my heart to see it.
So
I saddled a wild unbroken colt
And
rode him into the day there.
And
he threw me down like a thunder bolt
And
rolled on me as I lay there.
The
hunter’s whistle hummed in my ear
As
the city men tried to move me.
And
I died in my boots like a pioneer,
With
the whole wide sky above me.
And
your life is easy where
mine was
rough,
My
little clerks of the city.
But
an easy life is fragile stuff,
And
I find you easy to pity.
I
lie in the heart of the fat, black soil
Like
the seed of the prairie thistle;
It
has washed my bones with honey and oil
And
picked them clean as a whistle.
And
my youth returns, like the rains of
Spring,
And
my sons, like the wild geese flying.
And
I lie and hear the meadow-lark sing
And
have much content in my dying.
Go
play with your towns you
have built of
blocks,
The
towns where you would have bound
me!
I
sleep in the earth like a tired fox,
And
my buffalo have found me.
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