The Old Northwest

Near Pittsburgh, seeing the way we came,

How far our wheels would be by night,

We counted the waters that descend

Those valleys where our border was.

Beside that hill Ohio drew,

From corn-root southward to the cane,

Monongahela's fresheting,

And Alleghany, mountain-bound.

The slow climb of the evening

Recalled our painful history;

The wind, advancing, was delayed

Like sonorous music underground.

Amos the wheel-wright lay below,

With the bent dream of the idiot -

Stones glazed in the eroding snows,

Blue shadows of the winter's sun.

That churchstep where none stayed to speak

Of what quick wind was in the trees

Was not much use to country men

For whom no forecast knotted brow

With dread of empty granaries.

Under the sunken sod below

Lay Federalist and Republican.