His Broad Brimmed Hat Push'd Back With Careless Air

Rugged! Rugged as Parnassus!
Rude, as all roads I have trod
Yet are steeps and stone-strewn passes
Smooth o'erhead, and nearest God.
Here black thunders of my canyon
Shake its walls in Titan wars!
Here white sea-born clouds companion
With such peaks as know the stars.

Steep below me lies the valley,
Deep below me lies the town,
Where great sea-ships ride and rally,
And the world walks up and down.
O, the sea of lights far streaming
When the thousand flags are furled
When the gleaming bay lies dreaming
As it duplicates the world.

What great yoked brutes with briskets low,
With wrinkled necks like buffalo,
With round, brown, liquid, pleading eyes,
That turned so slow and sad to you,
That shone like love’s eyes soft with tears,
That seemed to plead, and make replies,
The while they bowed their necks and drew
The creaking load; and looked at you.
Their sable briskets swept the ground,
Their cloven feet kept solemn sound.

Two sullen bullocks led the line,
Their great eyes shining bright like wine;
Two sullen captive kings were they,
That had in time held herds at bay,
And even now they crushed the sod
With stolid sense of majesty,
And stately stepped and stately trod,
As if ‘t were something still to be
Kings even in captivity.

    (Air: “A wet sheet and a flowing sea.”)


A bright sun and a loosened rein,
    A whip whose pealing sound
Rings forth amid the forest trees
    As merrily forth we bound—
As merrily forth we bound, my boys,
    And, by the dawn’s pale light,
Speed fearless on our horses true
    From morn till starry night.

“Oh! for a tame and quiet herd,”
    I hear some crawler cry;
But give to me the mountain mob
    With the flash of their tameless eye—
With the flash of their tameless eye, my boys,
    As down the rugged spur
Dash the wild children of the woods,
    And the horse that mocks at fear.

There’s mischief in you wide-horned steer,
    There’s danger in you cow;
Then mount, my merry horsemen all,
    The wild mob’s ...

Give honor and love for evermore
To this great man gone to rest;
Peace on the dim Plutonian shore,
Rest in the land of the blest.

I reckon him greater than any man
That ever drew sword in war;
I reckon him nobler than king or khan,
Braver and better by far.

And wisest he in this whole wide land
Of hoarding till bent and gray;
For all you can hold in your cold dead hand
Is what you have given away.

So whether to wander the stars or to rest
Forever hushed and dumb,
He gave with a zest and he gave his best
Give him the best to come.

There was a bold cowboy
    Came out of the west;
Of all the bold riders,
    This cowboy's the best.

The horse he brought with him
    Will not run away;
But stands by the side of
    His master all day.

Give me that man that dares bestride
The active sea-horse, and with pride
Through that huge field of waters ride.

Who with his looks, too, can appease
The ruffling winds and raging seas,
In midst of all their outrages.

This, this a virtuous man can do,
Sail against rocks, and split them too;
Ay, and a world of pikes pass through.