Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, ENGLE FERRY, by EUGENE MANLOVE RHODES


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

ENGLE FERRY, by                    
First Line: Engle ferry is narrow and deep
Last Line: On engle ferry and engle ford.
Subject(s): Lakes; Pools; Ponds


(Elephant Butte Dam, built by the U. S. Reclamation Service in New Mexico, makes a lake forty
miles long. It is a hundred feet deep over Engle Ferry, near old Ft. McCrae. Engle Ford and
Ferry once served a county over one hundred miles square.)

Engle Ferry is narrow and deep,
The current is strong and the banks are steep;
Teamster and horseman, they praise the Lord
For the stony footing of Engle Ford;
Scoured and cleansed of quivering sand,
The safest ford on the Rio Grande.
The patient oxen may drink their fill,
With thankful eyes on the farther hill;
Drink, and lean to their yokes again,
Toiling over, with heave and strain,
To night, and rest, and the scanty sward
Of the starlit meadows by Engle Ford.

A winding road upon either hand,
Between black lava and yellow sand,
Between red water and close blue sky,
Leads to the ferry when floods are high.
Chain your wheels with a double hitch,
Skid and lurch on the last steep pitch,
Slide on the ferry and close the gates,
Block your wagons -- and trust the fates.
Clouds brood low on the sultry air,
Stabbing the gorges with lightning flare;
Angry echoes from hill to hill
Mutter and clamor and threaten still;
The pulleys whine to the cable's strain --
But Engle Ferry is crossed again!
Engle Ferry is lost and gone,
Engle Ford and Ferry.
The owl hoots over Babylon,
Deep over Ur the sand is blown,
Carthage city is sown with salt,
And never again shall wagons halt
At Engle Ford and Ferry.
Never again shall moon or star
Kiss the hill where the camp fires are;
Never again beneath the sun
Glance and glitter and lance and gun,
Drum and bugle and flag and sword,
And soldiers splashing through Engle Ford.

The passionless waters are deep and still
On golden mesa and dreaming hill;
Never again shall echoes call
To plunging ferry and lava wall.
Ditches may reach to the thirsty plain,
Roads may wander through fields of grain,
Valleys bloom with cities strange --
But Engle Ferry will never change!
Silence and darkness keep watch and ward
On Engle Ferry and Engle Ford.





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