Poem by Arthur Chapman

The Meeting

When walkin’ down a city street,
  Two thousand miles from home,
The pavestones hurtin’ of the feet
  That never ought to roam,
A pony jest reached to one side
  And grabbed me by the clothes;
He smelled the sagebrush, durn his hide —
  You bet a pony knows!

I stopped and petted him, and seen
  A brand upon his side;
I’ll bet across the prairie green
  He useter hit his stride;
Some puncher of the gentle cow
  Had owned him — that I knows;
Which same is why he jest says: "How!
  There’s sagebrush in your clothes."

He knowed the smell — no doubt it waked
  Him out of some bright dream;
In some far stream his thirst is slaked—
  He sees the mountains gleam;
He bears his rider far and fast,
  And real the bull thing grows
When I come sorter driftin’ past
  With sagebrush in my clothes.

Poor little hoss! It’s tough to be
  Away from that fair land —
Away from that wide prairie sea
  With all its vistas grand;
I feel for you, old hoss, I do —
  It’s hard the way life goes;
I’d like to travel back with you —
  Back where that sagebrush grows!

1. The Old Dutch Oven
2. Valentine Day in Cactus Center
3. The Ostrich-Punching of Arroyo Al
4. Out Where the West Begins
5. Men in the Rough

John Clare The Meeting ("Here we meet, too soon to part")

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