Badger Clark

“ You were our true-love, young, young land.
[85] When the last free trail is a prim, fenced lane
And our graves grow weeds through forgetful Mays,
Richer and statelier then you'll reign,
Mother of men whom the world will praise. ”

“ And the world is mine to win.
[89]
THE WIND IS BLOWIN'
My tired hawse nickers for his own home bars;
A hoof clicks out a spark.
The dim creek flickers to the lonesome stars;
The trail twists down the dark. ”

“ The spirit of them is eternal, the spirit of youth in the open, and their background is "God's Reserves," the vast reach of Western mesa and plain that will always remain free—"the way that it was when the world was new."
Every poem carries a breath of plains, wind-flavored with a tang of camp smoke; and, varied as they are in tune and tone, they do not contain a single note that is labored or unnatural. They are of native Western stock, as indigenous to the soil as the agile cow ponies whose hoofs evidently beat the time for their swinging measures ”

“ For we found that city life is a constant round of strife
And we ain't the breed for shyin' from a fray.
Chant your warwhoop, pardners dear, while the east turns pale with fear
And the chaparral is tremblin' all aroun'
[23] For we're wicked to the marrer; we're a midnight dream of terror
When we're ridin' up the rocky trail from town!
We acquired our hasty temper from our friend, the centipede.
From the rattlesnake we learnt to guard our rights.
We have gathered fightin' pointers from the famous bronco steed
And the bobcat teached us reppertee that bites. ”

“ Cowboys are the sternest critics of those who would represent the West. No hypocrisy, no bluff, no pose can evade them.
Yet cowboys have made Badger Clark's songs their own. So readily have they circulated that often the man who sings the song could not tell you where it started. Many of the poems have become folk songs of the West, we may say of America, for they speak of freedom and the open. ”

“ When I get plumb riled and my sense goes wild
And my temper is fractious growed,
If he'll hump his neck just a triflin' speck,
Then it's dollars to dimes I'm throwed.
For a man is a man, but he's partly a beast. ”

“ And my sleepiness fightin' my pride,
Then I nod and I blink at the dark herd below
And the saddle he sings as my hawse paces slow:
"Sleepy—sleepy—sleepy—
We was ordered a close watch to keep,
But I'll sing you a song in a drowsy old key;
All the world is a-snoozin' so why shouldn't we?
Go to sleep, pardner mine, go to sleep."
[pg]
"There's a time to be slow and a time to be quick."
[pg]
[19]
A BAD HALF HOUR
Wonder why I feel so restless ”

“ The discovery that certain people in the world were willing to pay money for such rhymes as he could write bent the whole course of his subsequent life, for good or evil, and the occasional lyric impulse hardened into a habit which has consumed much of his time and most of his serious thought since that date. The verses written to his mother were Ridin', the first poem in his first book, Sun and Saddle Leather, and the greater part of the poems in both Sun and Saddle Leather and Grass Grown Trails were written in Arizona. ”

“ When the man's is proved a lie.
[57] Last the rover's circle guidin'
Brought me where I used to be,
And I met her, gaily ridin'
With a smarter man than me.
Then I raised my dusty cover
But she didn't see nor hear,
So I hummed the old tune over,
Laughin' in my hawse's ear:
If the snowflake specks the desert
Or the yucca blooms awhile.
Ay! what gloom the mountain covers
Where the driftin' cloud shade hovers!
Ay! the trail o' parted lovers,
Where "forever" lasts a mile!
[58]
BACHIN'
Our lives are hid ”

“ But we got to stand it till the mornin'.
[53] Mostly it's a moonlight world our trail winds through.
Kaint see much beyond our saddle horns.
Always far away is misty silver-blue;
Always underfoot it's rocks and thorns.
So—o, now. It must be this away—
The lonesome owl a-callin',
The mournful coyote squallin'. ”

“ Shinin' 'dobe fireplace, shadows on the wall—
(See old Shorty's friv'lous toes a-twitchin' at the call:)
It's the best grand high that there is within the law
When seven jolly punchers tackle "Turkey in the Straw."
[37] Freezy was the day's ride, lengthy was the trail,
Ev'ry steer was haughty with a high arched tail,
But we held 'em and we shoved 'em, for our longin' hearts were tried
By a yearnin' for tobacker and our dear fireside.
Swing 'er into stop-time, don't you let 'er droop!
(You're about as tuneful as a coyote with the croup!) ”

“ Generous has been the praise given Sun and Saddle Leather, but perhaps no criticism has summed up the work so satisfactorily as the comment of the old cow man who said, "You can break me if there's a dead poem in the book, I read the hull of it. Who in H—— is this kid Clark, anyway? I don't know how he knowed, but he knows."
That is what proves Badger Clark the real poet. He knows. Beyond his wonderful [pg] presentation of the West is the quality of universal appeal that makes his work real art. ”

“ While my merry pardners entertained his friends.
[24] Sing 'er out, my buckeroos! Let the desert hear the news.
Tell the stars the way we rubbed the haughty down.
We're the fiercest wolves a-prowlin' and it's just our night for howlin'
When we're ridin' up the rocky trail from town. ”