|
Classic and Contemporary Poetry
THE BALLAD OF WILLIAM SYCAMORE (1790-1880), by STEPHEN VINCENT BENET Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: My father, he was a mountaineer Last Line: And my buffalo have found me. Subject(s): Pioneers | |||
My father he was a mountaineer, His fist was a knotty hammer. He was quick on his feet as 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 the 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 a ewer with silver handles. But I remember a coonskin cap And the smell of bayberry candles! The cabin logs 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 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 dried herbs rattled above the door And the dust went up to the ceiling. There are 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 skill to befriend me. With a leather shirt to cover my back, And a redskin 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 straight as a hunting-knife With eyes as bright as the Dipper! 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. I saddled a red, unbroken colt And rode him into the day there, And he threw me down like a thunderbolt 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's easy where mine was rough, My little clerks of the city! But an easy body is fragile stuff And I find you easy to pity. I lie in the heart of the fat, black soil Like the seed of a 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 Sring, 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 the towns you have built of blocks, The towns where you would have bound me! I sleep in my earth like a tired fox, And my buffalo have found me. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE TEMPEST by WILLIAM JAY SMITH ON THE EMIGRATION TO AMERICA AND PEOPLING WESTERN COUNTRY by PHILIP FRENEAU SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY: RUTHERFORD MCDOWELL by EDGAR LEE MASTERS CROSSING THE PLAINS by CINCINNATUS HEINE MILLER WESTWARD HO! by CINCINNATUS HEINE MILLER FACE TO FACE by ADRIENNE CECILE RICH THE SETTLER: AMERICA IN THE MAKING by ALFRED BILLINGS STREET THE FOUNDERS OF OHIO by WILLIAM HENRY VENABLE PIONEERS! O PIONEERS! by WALT WHITMAN A MINOR POET by STEPHEN VINCENT BENET ARCHIMEDES LAST FORAY by STEPHEN VINCENT BENET CAMPUS SONNET: BEFORE AN EXAMINATION by STEPHEN VINCENT BENET |
|