Poetry Archives

He stands upon the city street, keen-eyed, and brown of face,
He seems to bring a breath of air from some broad prairie space;
He’s perched upon a pair of heels that fit the stirrup’s curve,
That meet the bucking bronco’s plunge and counteract each swerve;
And of all the chaps with whom the gods are ever in cahoots
   Give me the cattle-puncher in the high-heeled boots.

He brings a hint of wider skies, of ranges that are vast,
Of manful vigils in the days when sweeps the wintry blast;
All out of step with things in town, he sees the crowd surge by;
The sage is in his nostrils still—he hears the gaunt wolf cry;
He rides as Alexander rode—the bell rings when he shoots—
   The gallant cattle-puncher in the high-heeled boots.

He is the last of that old guard defending Cattle Land,
Those knights who jousted for the cause—blood brothers of the brand;
But now they’ve fenced the water-hole, they’re harrowing the plain,
They’re changing all the sagebrush flats to fields of waving grain;
The cowmen will be gone, they say, and there are no recruits—
   Good-bye, brave cattle-puncher in the high-heeled boots!