Jeff Hart rode out of the gulch to war When the low sun yellowed the pines. He waved to his folks in the cabin door And yelled to the men at the mines. The gulch kept watch till he dropped from sight— Neighbors and girl and kin. Jeff Hart rode out of the gulch one night; Next morning the world came in. His dad went back to the clinking drills And his mother cooked for the men; The pines branched black on the eastern hills, Then black to the west again. But never again, by dusk or dawn, Were the days in the gulch the same, For back up the trail Jeff Hart had gone The trample of millions came. Then never a clatter of dynamite But echoed the guns of the Aisne, And the coyote's wail in the woods at night Was bitter with Belgium's pain. We heard the snarl of a savage sea In the pines when the wind went through, And the strangers Jeff Hart fought to free Grew folks to the folks he knew. Jeff Hart has drifted for good and all, To the ghostly bugles blown, But the far French valley that saw him fall Blood kin to the gulch is grown; And his foreign folks are ours by right— The friends that he died to win. Jeff Hart rode out of the gulch one night; Next morning the world came in. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE CHAM TOWERS AT DA NANG by KAREN SWENSON THE HAPPIEST HEART by JOHN VANCE CHENEY THE FALL; A GREAT FAVORIT BEHEADED by LUIS DE GONGORA LOVE IN THE VALLEY (VERSION A) by GEORGE MEREDITH A RECEIPT TO CURE THE VAPOURS by MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU THE ARGONAUTS (ARGONATUICA): THE MOVING ROCKS by APOLLONIUS RHODIUS |