Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE OLD SANTA FE TRAIL, by RICHARD EUGENE BURTON


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE OLD SANTA FE TRAIL, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: It wound through strange scarred hills, down canyons lone
Last Line: Lo! Brightsome fruits to feed a mighty folk.
Subject(s): Santa Fe Trail; West (u.s.) - Exploration


IT wound through strange scarred hills, down canyons lone
Where wild things screamed, with winds for company;
Its mile-stones were the bones of pioneers.
Bronzed, haggard men, often with thirst a-moan,
Lashed on their beasts of burden toward the sea:
An epic quest it was of elder years,
For fabled gardens or for good, red gold,
The trail men strove in iron days of old.

To-day the steam-god thunders through the vast,
While dominant Saxons from the hurtling trains
Smile at the aliens, Mexic, Indian,
Who offer wares, keen-colored, like their past;
Dread dramas of immitigable plains
Rebuke the softness of the modern man;
No menace, now, the desert's mood of sand;
Still westward lies a green and golden land.

For, at the magic touch of water, blooms
The wilderness, and where of yore the yoke
Tortured the toilers into dateless tombs,
Lo! brightsome fruits to feed a mighty folk.





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