Charles Badger Clark

I ride alone and hate the boys I meet.
Today, some way, their laughin' hurts me so.
I hate the mockin'-birds in the mesquite-
And yet I liked 'em just a week ago.
...

The daybreak comes so pure and still.
He said that I was pure as dawn,
That day we climbed to Signal Hill.
...

Trailing the last gleam after,
In the valleys emptied of light,
Ripples a whimsical laughter
Under the wings of the night.
...

(Written for Mother)

Oh Lord, I've never lived where churches
grow.
I love creation better as it stood
That day You finished it so long ago
...

I rode across a valley range
I hadn't seen for years.
The trail was all so spoilt and strange
It nearly fetched the tears.
...

Spanish is the lovin' tongue,
Soft as music, lights as spray.
'Twas a girl I learnt it from,
Livin' down Sonora way.
...

Men of the older, gentler soil,
Loving the things that their fathers wrought-
Worn old fields of their father's toil,
Scarred old hills where their fathers fought-
...

The wind is blowin' cold down the mountain tips of snow
And 'cross the ranges layin' brown and dead;
It's cryin' through the valley trees that wear the mistletoe
And mournin' with the gray clouds overhead.
...

One time, 'way back where the year marks fade
God said: 'I see I must lose my West,
The place where I've always come to rest,
For the White Man grows till he fights for bread
...

You've watched the ground-hog's shadow and the shiftin' weather signs
Till the Northern prairie starred itse'f with flowers;
You've seen the snow a-meltin' up among the Northern pines
And the mountain creeks a-roarin' with the showers.
...

Up from the prairie and through the pines,
Over your struggling headboard lines
Winds of the West go by.
You must love them, you booted dead,
...

You've watched the ground-hog's shadow and the shiftin' weather signs
Till the Northern prairie starred itse'f with flowers;
You've seen the snow a-meltin' up among the Northern pines
And the mountain creeks a-roarin' with the showers.
...

My tired horse nickers for his own home bars;
A hoof clicks out a spark.
The dim creek flickers to the lonesome starts;
The trail twists down the dark.
...

Desert blue and silver in the still moonshine,
Coyote yappin' lazy on the hill,
Sleepy winks of lightnin' down the far sky line,
Time for millin' cattle to be still.
...

When my trail stretches out to the edge of the sky
Through the desert so empty and bright,
When I'm watchin' the miles as they go crawlin' by
And a-hopin' I'll get there by night,
...

At a roundup on the Gily,
One sweet mornin' long ago,
Ten of us was throwed right freely
By a hawse from Idaho.
...

There is some that like the city—
Grass that's curried smooth and green,
Theaytres and stranglin' collars,
Wagons run by gasoline—
...

Wrangle up your mouth-harps, drag your banjo out,
Tune your old guitarra till she twangs right stout,
For the snow is on the mountains and the wind is on the plain,
But we'll cut the chimney's moanin' with a livelier refrain.
...

Wonder why I feel so restless;
Moon is shinin' still and bright,
Cattle all is restin' easy,
But I just kain't sleep tonight.
...

God of the open, though I am so simple
Out in the wind I can travel with you,
noons when the hot mesas ripple and dimple,
Nights when the stars glitter cool in the blue.
...