Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE TOTE TEAM, by ARCHIE WILFRED STONE



Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE TOTE TEAM, by                    
First Line: Over the bridge / with heavy tread
Last Line: A black and a white and a blood-red bay.
Subject(s): Animals; Horses; Labor & Laborers; Work; Workers


Over the Bridge
With heavy tread—
Tramp, tramp, tramp—
With heave of shoulder,
And toss of head—
Tramp, tramp, tramp—
With crack of harness,
And a rumble of wheels,
And a drumming thunder of iron heels;
Jim and Colonel, and blaze-faced Bill,
Dinah and Molly, and star-faced Jill;
A sorrel, a roan and a dappled gray,
A black and a white and a blood-red bay.

Over the bridge,
And up the road,
And into the woods with the swaying load—
Tramp, tramp, tramp—
For men must work,
And men must eat,
And horses must sweat on steel-shod feet—
Tramp, tramp, tramp—
There are forty men at Number Ten,
And forty more at York's;
There's a camp on the Moose,
And a crew at the Sluice,
And a hungry gang at the Forks.

So over the bridge,
And up the road,
And into the woods with the swaying load—
Tramp, tramp, tramp—
Flour and beef and salted fish,
A sack of peas for a Frenchman's dish,
Pork and beans, and a pickled ham,
Coffee and sugar, and raspberry jam;
Tobacco and matches, and corn-cob pipes,
Woolen blankets and scarlet stripes,
Socks and mittens and mackinaws gay,
Grain for the horses, and bales of hay.

So over the bridge,
And up the road,
And into the woods with the swaying load—
Tramp, tramp, tramp—
Straddling a rock,
Grazing a stump,
Crossing the corduroy,
Thumpety-bump.
Then hock and hub
In the deep black mud,
While the hot flanks reek with a steaming flood.
The brown fawn wonders to see them pass;
The bob-cat grins from her nest in the grass;
The white-tail snorts and bounds away—
So tramp, tramp, tramp,
Through the weary day.
For men must work,
And men must eat,
And horses must sweat on steel-shod feet.
Jim and Colonel, and blaze-faced Bill,
Molly and Dinah, and star-faced Jill;
A sorrel, a roan and a dapple gray,
A black and a white and a blood-red bay.





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