Эрл Алонзо Брининстул (Earl Alonzo Brininstool)

Frederic Remington

He knew the West as only few have known;
He knew the men; he knew the horses, too;
The swarthy, silent trapper, all alone,
The cowman--and he knew what they could do.
The range to him was an open book;
The peaks and crags and hills--he knew them well;
He knew the secrets in each canyon brook,
And what the great plains whispered he could tell.

At his deft touch the canvas sprang to life;
It glowed with all the colors of the West;
His paint-tubes told the horrors of the strife--
The charge, the savage warwhoop and the rest.
He showed the white-topped wagons, jolting on;
The grim and hardy plainsmen as they rode;
The campfire in the gray of early dawn;
The pack-train with its lashed and swaying load.

He knew the cattle and the brands they bore;
He drew them with a keen and master hand;
He saw and saved to us the West beofre
There passed the remnants of that valiant brand.
He gave to us the cowboy--carefree, brave;
The riders of the range he pictured true;
'Twas left for him their herds and them to save,
Ere they had passed forever from our view.

A monument to him who knew the West!
Whose brush so deftly told its every tale;
The horses and the men he loved best,
When he, too, rode the dusty cattle trail.
A shaft to him whose canvas gleams and glows
with colors of the life he loved so well;
And from whose painted pictures ever flows
A charm which weaves o'er us a magic spell!