Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, PLAINS BORN, by CHARLES BADGER CLARK JR.



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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

PLAINS BORN, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Westward from the greener places
Last Line: Round the blue rim of the known!
Alternate Author Name(s): Clark, Badger
Subject(s): Cowboys; Prairies; Plains


Westward from the greener places
Where the rivers glint and twine
Stretch the gold-and-purple spaces
Of the country that is mine;
And to lilac Rockies lifting
Toward the deeper blue above,
There is neither flaw nor shifting
In the title of my love.

My own! my own!
Many a silent, sunny zone,
With the soft cloud shadows drifting
On the desert and the sown!

I would have no wall or warder
Mar my goodly heritage,
From the yuccas of the border
To the snowy northern sage—
Glad of every mind that passes
Down the mesa and the plain,
Singing freedom in the grasses
And my pony's rippling mane.

My own! my own!
There is freedom here alone,
Under midnight's starry masses
Or the day king on his throne!

Faith must blunder on in blinkers
Through a city's swirling rout,
For the milling herd of thinkers
Blurs the way of wisdom out;
But where stainless sky is bending
Over never-furrowed sod
There's an open trail ascending
To the presence of a God!

My own! my own!
Where the troubled eyes are shown
Heaven and earth forever blending
Round the blue rim of the known!





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