Classic and Contemporary Poetry
KIT CARSON'S RIDE, by CINCINNATUS HEINE MILLER Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: Room! Room to turn round in, to breathe and be free Last Line: "that's why." Alternate Author Name(s): Miller, Joaquin Subject(s): Carson, Kit (1809-1868); Scouting & Scouts; West (u.s.); Southwest; Pacific States | ||||||||
Room! room to turn round in, to breathe and be free, To grow to be giant, to sail as at sea With the speed of the wind on a steed with his mane To the wind, without pathway or route or a rein. Room! room to be free where the white border'd sea Blows a kiss to a brother as boundless as he; Where the buffalo come like a cloud on the plain, Pouring on like the tide of a storm-driven main, And the lodge of the hunter to friend or to foe Offers rest; and unquestion'd you come or you go. My plains of America! Seas of wild lands! From a land in the seas in a raiment of foam, That has reached to a stranger the welcome of home, I turn to you, lean to you, lift you my hands. Run? Run? See this flank, sir, and I do love him so! But he's blind, badger blind. Whoa, Pache, boy, whoa. No, you wouldn't believe it to look at his eyes, But he's blind, badger blind, and it happen'd this wise: "We lay in the grass and the sunburnt clover That spread on the ground like a great brown cover Northward and southward, and west and away To the Brazos, where our lodges lay, One broad and unbroken level of brown. We were waiting the curtains of night to come down To cover us trio and conceal our flight With my brown bride, won from an Indian town That lay in the rear the full ride of a night. "We lounged in the grass -- her eyes were in mine, And her hands on my knee, and her hair was as wine In its wealth and its flood, pouring on and all over Her bosom wine red, and press'd never by one. Her touch was as warm as the tinge of the clover Burnt brown as it reach'd to the kiss of the sun. Her words they were low as the lute-throated dove, And as laden with love as the heart when it beats In its hot, eager answer to earliest love, Or the bee hurried home by its burthen of sweets. "We lay low in the grass on the broad plain levels, Old Revels and I, and my stolen brown bride; 'Forty full miles if a foot, and the devils Of red Comanches are hot on the track When once they strike it. Let the sun go down Soon, very soon,' muttered bearded old Revels As he peer'd at the sun, lying low on his back, Holding fast to his lasso. Then he jerk'd at his steed And he sprang to his feet, and glanced swiftly around, And then dropp'd, as if shot, with an ear to the ground; Then again to his feet, and to me, to my bride, While his eyes were like flame, his face like a shroud, His form like a king, and his beard like a cloud, And his voice loud and shrill, as both trumpet and reed, -- 'Pull, pull in your lassoes, and bridle to steed, And speed you if ever for life you would speed. Aye, ride for your lives, for your lives you must ride! For the plain is aflame, the prairie on fire, And the feet of wild horses hard flying before I heard like a sea breaking high on the shore, While the buffalo come like a surge of the sea, Driven far by the flame, driving fast on us three As a hurricane comes, crushing palms in his ire.' "We drew in the lassoes, seized saddle and rein, Threw them on, cinched them on, cinched them over again, And again drew the girth; and spring we to horse, With head to the Brazos, with a sound in the air Like the surge of a sea, with a flash in the eye, From that red wall of flame reaching up to the sky; A red wall of flame and a black rolling sea Rushing fast upon us, as the wind sweeping free And afar from the desert blown hollow and hoarse. "Not a word, not a wail from a lip was let fall, We broke not a whisper, we breathed not a prayer, There was work to be done, there was death in the air, And the chance was as one to a thousand for all. "Twenty miles!. . . thirty miles! . . . a dim distant speck. . . . Then a long reaching line, and the Brazos in sight! And I rose in my seat with a shout of delight. I stood in my stirrup, and look'd to my right -- But Revels was gone; I glanced by my shoulder And saw his horse stagger; I saw his head drooping Hard down on his breast, and his naked breast stooping Low down to the mane, as so swifter and bolder Ran reaching out for us the red-footed fire. He rode neck to neck with a buffalo bull, That made the earth shake where he came in his course, The monarch of millions, with shaggy mane full Of smoke and of dust, and it shook with desire Of battle, with rage and with bellowing hoarse. His keen, crooked horns, through the storm of his mane, Like black lances lifted and lifted again; And I looked but this once, for the fire licked through, And Revels was gone, as we rode two and two. "I look'd to my left then -- and nose, neck, and shoulder Sank slowly, sank surely, till back to my thighs, And up through the black blowing veil of her hair Did beam full in mine her two marvelous eyes, With a longing and love yet a look of despair And of pity for me, as she felt the smoke fold her, And flames leaping far for her glorious hair. Her sinking horse falter'd, plunged, fell and was gone As I reach'd through the flame and I bore her still on. On! into the Brazos, she, Pache and I -- Poor, burnt, blinded Pache. I love him. . . . That's why." | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...WESTERN WAGONS by STEPHEN VINCENT BENET DRIVING WEST IN 1970 by ROBERT BLY IN THE HELLGATE WIND by MADELINE DEFREES A PERIOD PORTRAIT OF SYMPATHY by EDWARD DORN ASSORTED COMPLIMENTS by EDWARD DORN AT THE COWBOY PANEL by EDWARD DORN A CALIFORNIA CHRISTMAS by CINCINNATUS HEINE MILLER |
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