Poetry Archives

Have you an eye for the trails, the trails,
   The old mark and the new?
What scurried here, what loitered there,
   In the dust and in the dew?

Have you an eye for the beaten track,
   The old hoof and the young?
Come name me the drivers of yesterday,
   Sing me the songs they sung.

O, was it a schooner last went by,
   And where will it ford the stream?
Where will it halt in the early dusk,
   And where will the camp-fire gleam?

They used to take the shortest cut
   The cattle trails had made;
Get down the hill by the easy slope
   To the water and the shade.

But it’s barbed wire fence, and section line,
   And kill-horse travel now;
Scoot you down the canyon bank,—
   The old road’s under plough.

Have you an eye for the laden wheel,
   The worn tire or the new?
Or the sign of the prairie pony’s hoof
   Was never trimmed for shoe?