Monday, July 8, 2019

SONGS FOR A LAND OF HORSEBACK MEN - from Songs of the Saddlemen - by S. Omar Barker







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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