Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, LATIGO TOWN, by CHARLES BADGER CLARK JR.


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

LATIGO TOWN, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: You and I settled this section together
Last Line: Dreams of the glorious youth that we had!
Alternate Author Name(s): Clark, Badger
Subject(s): Cowboys; Youth


You and I settled this section together;
Youthful and mettled and wild were we then.
You were the gladdest town out in the weather;
I was the maddest young scamp among men.
Latigo Town, ay, Latigo Town,
Child of the mesa sun-flooded and brown,
That hour of gracious romance and good leather,
Splendid, audacious, comes never again.

Many a rover as brash as a sparrow,
Loping in over the amethyst plains,
Reined for your spinning roulette and your faro,
Light-hearted sinning and fiddled refrains.
Latigo Town, ay, Latigo Town,
We made a past you are still living down,
Keen for a tussle, with salt in our marrow,
Steel in our muscles and sun in our veins!

Rowels that jingled and rigs that were tattered,
Yet how we tingled to dreams that were high!
Slim was the treasure we gathered and scattered,
But can you measure the wind and the sky?
Latigo Town, ay, Latigo Town,
Freedom and youth were a robe and a crown.
Then we were bosses of riches that mattered,
Laughing at losses of things you can buy.

Town that was fiery and careless and Spanish,
Boy that was wiry and wayward and glad—
Over the border to limbo they vanish;
Progress and order decreed they were bad.
Latigo Town, ay, Latigo Town,
Pursy with culture and civic renown,
Never censorious progress can banish
Dreams of the glorious youth that we had!





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