Classic and Contemporary Poetry
THE BAD LANDS, by CHARLES BADGER CLARK JR. Poet's Biography First Line: No fresh green things in the bad lands bide Last Line: The song of a million years. Alternate Author Name(s): Clark, Badger Subject(s): Cowboys; Earth; Landmark Preservation; Prairies; World; Plains | ||||||||
No fresh green things in the Bad Lands bide; It is all stark red and gray, And strewn with bones that had lived and died Ere the first man saw the day. When the sharp crests dream in the sunset gleam And the bat through the canyon veers, You will sometimes catch, if you listen long, The tones of the Bad Lands' mystic song, A song of a million years. The place is as dry as a crater cup, Yet you hear, as the stars shine free, From the barren gulches sounding up, The lap of a spawning sea, A breeze that cries where the great ferns rise From the pools on a new-made shore, With the whip and whir of batlike wings And the snarl of slimy, fighting things And the tread of the dinosaur. Then the sea voice ebbs through untold morns, And the jungle voices reign The hunting howl and the clash of horns And the screech of rage and pain. Harsh and grim in the old earth hymn In that far brute paradise, And as ages drift the rough strains fall To a single note more grim than all, The crack of the glacial ice. So the song runs on, with shift and change. Through the years that have no name, And the late notes soar to a higher range, But the theme is still the same. Man's battle-cry and the guns' reply Blend in with the old, old rhyme That was traced in the score of the strata marks While millenniums winked like campfire sparks Down the winds of unguessed time. There's a finer fight than of tooth and claw, More clean than of blade and gun, But, fair or foul, by the Great Bard's law 'Twill be fight till the song is done. Not mine to sigh for the song's deep "why," Which only the Great Bard hears. My soul steps out to the martial swing Of the brave old song that the Bad Lands sing, The song of a million years. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...LEFT-HANDED POEM by JAMES GALVIN NO COMPLAINTS; FOR ROBERT GRENIER by ANSELM HOLLO POINT OF ROCKS, TEXAS by NAOMI SHIHAB NYE PRAIRIE HOUSES by BARBARA GUEST AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL by KATHARINE LEE BATES THE PRAIRIES by WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT TO MAKE A PRAIRIE by EMILY DICKINSON THE PRAIRIE-GRASS DIVIDING by WALT WHITMAN SYMPHONY OF THE SOIL by EVA K. ANGLESBURG A BORDER AFFAIR by CHARLES BADGER CLARK JR. A BAD HALF HOUR by CHARLES BADGER CLARK JR. A COWBOY'S PRAYER (WRITTEN FOR MOTHER) by CHARLES BADGER CLARK JR. |
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