Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, SONG OF THE OPEN LAND, by RICHARD EUGENE BURTON


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

SONG OF THE OPEN LAND, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: We of the open country
Last Line: Hail, from the open land!
Variant Title(s): Song Of The Open Road
Subject(s): Beauty; Life; Singing & Singers; Songs


WE of the open country,
Men of the ranch and range,
Bronzed of skin and out to win,
Men of the landscape strange,

Hail you, and bid you hither,
Brothers so far away,
City-beguiled and greed-defiled,
Into the air of day!

Here are the visions splendid,
Girdled with space and light;
Ride where you will, there is beauty still,
Breath, and the body's might.

The silver gray of the mesa,
The alkali blotch below,
The water pool's sheen where the grass grows green,
And the far peaks tipped with snow.

The great, gaunt scars of the chasms,
Where the pines are writhen things,
Small of girth and stunted from birth,
Where nothing flies or sings.

Yellow the sands, or dappled,
Up where the foot-hills wind,
And the white stream leaps down the canyon deeps
With the roar of beasts behind.

Myriad changes, myriad moods,
Oh, the glad gamut of life!
Deserts abloom or bare as doom,
Places for sleep or strife.

All of it splendid, all of it ours!
Brother by brother stand!
Ho, for the West, where to breathe is best,
Hail, from the open land!





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