Maxwell Struthers Burt

Maxwell Struthers Burt Poems

Maxwell Struthers Burt Biography

Maxwell Struthers Burt (October 18, 1882 Baltimore, MD – August 29, 1954, Jackson Hole, Wyoming), was an American novelist, poet, and short-story writer. Struthers Burt graduated from Princeton University in 1904. In 1908 he moved to Wyoming and founded the JY Ranch with Louis Joy. This ranch ultimately became the famous Rockefeller Ranch of the same name (the JY). In 1912, following a dispute with Louis Joy, he established the Bar BC Bar B C Ranch, a dude ranch. He met and married his wife, Katherine Newlin Burt an author of Western novels, in the same year. Burt's son, Nathaniel Burt, was also a published writer. Struthers was one of the people who led ultimately to the establishment of Grand Teton National Park when, in 1923, he met with other like-minded individuals at Maud Noble's cabin and began the process of gathering support to have the area come under protection by the Federal Government. His papers are housed at Princeton University)

The Best Poem Of Maxwell Struthers Burt

Fifty Years Spent

Fifty years spent before I found me,
Wind on my mouth and the taste of the rain,
Where the great hills circled and swept around me
And the torrents leapt to the mist-drenched plain;
Ah, it was long this coming of me
Back to the hills and the sounding sea.

Ye who can go when so it tideth
To fallow fields when the Spring is new,
Finding the spirit that there abideth,
Taking fill of the sun and the dew;
Little ye know of the cross of the town
And the small pale folk who go up and down.

Fifty years spent before I found me
A bank knee-deep with climbing rose,
Saw, or had space to look around me,
Knew how the apple buds and blows;
And all the while that I thought me wise
I walked as one with blinded eyes.

Scarcely a lad who passes twenty
But finds him a girl to balm his heart;
Only I, who had work so plenty,
Bade this loving keep apart:
Once I saw a girl in a crowd,
But I hushed my heart when it cried out aloud.

City courts in January, --
City courts in wilted June,
Often ye will catch and carry
Echoes of some straying tune;
Ah, but underneath the feet
Echo stifles in a street.

Fifty years spent, and what do they bring me?
Now I can buy the meadow and hill:
Where is the heart of the boy to sing thee?
Where is the life for thy living to fill?
And thirty years back in a city crowd
I passed a girl when my heart cried loud!

Maxwell Struthers Burt Comments