The Old Freighter Comes Back in a Ford
With drum of motor and droning tire,
Rattle of bridges and culvert's jar,
An old man is headed for Hearts Desire
(His son at the wheel of a new Ford car)-
A man who had loyally held apart
The way of his feet from the way of his heart.
I
Missouri's a good state-I'm no traitor;
Anna.loved it and I loved Anna.
She couldn't bear to have me a freighter,
And that's how it was I left Montana.
But it came to seem I couldn't die
Till I'd been back once to say good-bye.
People caution me about changes-
Antelope gone from the plowed-up prairies.
Maybe! . . . God hasn't moved the ranges,
Tl take a chance on old St. Mary's!
Spanish Peaks will smile in the sun,
Telling me things that are never done.
I know Sun River still comes hurrying
Out of its canyons, spinning and prancing
Over the shallows. I'm not worrying
About government projects and road-house dancing!
Some of the rollickers do not dream
How much like earlier folks they seem.
Il
We're having fun at the tourist camps-
Humanest people, just like the rest;
Some of them honest and some of them scamps,
But half of them sighing, "It's not the West,
Montana isn't the West any more!"
I smile--at something I've heard before.
My father was one of the forty-niners,
Down by the Isthmus and back by the Horn,
But when he landed, part of the miners
Were getting restless, and saying forlorn,
"Too many pilgrims here for me;
It isn't the West like it used to be!"
The West! - Each sun-pressed pine distils
Aroma. August snows remote
Look down. The fervor of blue hills
Stings in my eyes, and stabs my throat.
I wonder if to find the West
A man must carry it in his breast.
WI
I've been studying changes-great
Enough to set a man's heart on fire!
A motor pulling a mile-long freight
By just one finger touching the wire!
Where I lurched and swung with a ten-mule team,
Men have seen a vision and dreamed a dream.
Such a miracle is a star
That sets the whole sky right for me.
The East says, This is the way things are,
But the West is singing of things to be;
And that is what holds her children true
To her timeless will, that of old was new.
Doubts recede in the faith that rises.
Power carriers, striding the hill,
Quicken our hearts with far surmises
Of what shall be when our hearts are still.
We're going back, now, just as we planned it;
Missouri's a good state-I can stand it.
Structure
63 lines · 8 stanzas