SONGS FOR A LAND OF HORSEBACK MEN
from Songs of the Saddlemen
by S. Omar Barker
I would sing them sweet and low
Songs for my New Mexico,
Where the cottonwwood's green shade
Meets the desert unafraid;
Where blue deepens every sky,
And sun-lazy cattle lie,
Chewing gently as they drowse,
Well content that they are cows
In a land of mesas wide,
Where the sunbrowned cowboys ride.
I would sing them clear and loud
Songs of mountains snowy browed,
Where the lonely cougar's track
Threads through forests greenly black:
Where the brawling Pecos heads
In a dozen rocky beds;
Where the spruce tree coolly roofs
Trails for hardy horses' hoofs.
I would sing out free and lusty
Of a land whose songs are dusty
From four hundred years of trail men
Horse-and-saddle, never-fail men !
Spanish nights in armor bold,
Thirsting for a legend's gold;
Mountain men and frontier troopers,
Silent men and saddle-whoopers;
Long haired scouts and ciboleros,
Texas trail men, wild vaqueros;
Sweating cowhands of the ranches
Saddle breeds in all their branches !
I could sing New Mexico
In a hundred songs I know,
Yet in each somewhere would sound
Hoofs that drum upon the ground,
Rhythm now, as rhythm then,
For this land of horseback men !
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