Chiquita

Beautiful! Sir, you may say so. Thar isnt her match in the county;
Is thar, old gal, Chiquita, my darling, my beauty?
Feel of that neck, sir, thars velvet! Whoa! steady, ah, will you, you vixen!
Whoa! I say. Jack, trot her out; let the gentleman look at her paces.

Morgan! she aint nothing else, and Ive got the papers to prove it.
Sired by Chippewa Chief, and twelve hundred dollars wont buy her.
Briggs of Tuolumne owned her. Did you know Briggs of Tuolumne?
Busted hisself in White Pine, and blew out his brains down in Frisco?

Hednt no savey, hed Briggs. Thar, Jack! thatll do, quit that foolin!
Nothin to what she kin do, when shes got her work cut out before her.
Hosses is hosses, you know, and likewise, too, jockeys is jockeys:
And taint evry man as can ride as knows what a hoss has got in him.

Know the old ford on the Fork, that nearly got Flanigans leaders?
Nasty in daylight, you bet, and a mighty rough ford in low water!
Well, it aint six weeks ago that me and the Jedge and his nevey
Struck for that ford in the night, in the rain, and the water all round us;

Up to our flanks in the gulch, and Rattlesnake Creek just a-bilin,
Not a plank left in the dam, and nary a bridge on the river.
I had the gray, and the Jedge had his roan, and his nevey, Chiquita;
And after us trundled the rocks jest loosed from the top of the canyon.

Lickity, lickity, switch, we came to the ford, and Chiquita
Buckled right down to her work, and, a fore I could yell to her rider,
Took water jest at the ford, and there was the Jedge and me standing,
And twelve hundred dollars of hoss-flesh afloat, and a-driftin to thunder!

Would ye blieve it? That night, that hoss, that ar filly, Chiquita,
Walked herself into her stall, and stood there, all quiet and dripping:
Clean as a beaver or rat, with nary a buckle of harness,
Just as she swam the Fork, that hoss, that ar filly, Chiquita.

Thats what I call a hoss! and    What did you say?    Oh, the nevey?
Drownded, I reckon, leastways, he never kem beck to deny it.
Ye see the derned fool had no seat, ye couldnt have made him a rider;
And then, ye know, boys will be boys, and hosses well, hosses is hosses!

Bret Harte

Bret Harte was an American author and poet, renowned for his works about pioneering life in California. Born on August 25, 1836, he gained national fame with his short stories and poetry depicting life in the early mining camps. His most famous works include 'The Luck of Roaring Camp' and 'The Outcasts of Poker Flat.' Harte's writings played a crucial role in shaping the Western genre in American literature. He passed away on May 5, 1902.

Bret Harte

The Mountain Hearts-Ease

Bret Harte, Simple Poetry

The Reveille

Bret Harte, Simple Poetry

Coyote

Bret Harte, Simple Poetry

An Arctic Vision

Bret Harte, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

The Idyl of Battle Hollow

No, I wont, thar, now, so! And it aint nothin, no!
And thars nary to tell that you folks yer dont know;
And its Belle, tell us, do! and its Belle, is it true?
And Wots this yer yarn of the Major and you?
Till Im sick of it all, so I am, but I spose
Thet is nothin to you. . . . Well, then, listen! yer goes!

It was after the fight, and around us all night
Thar was poppin and shootin a powerful sight;
And the niggers had fled, and Aunt Chlo was abed,
And Pinky and Milly were hid in the shed:
And I ran out at daybreak, and nothin was nigh
But the growlin of cannon low down in the sky.

And I saw not a thing, as I ran to the spring,
But a splintered fence rail and a broken-down swing,
And a bird said Kerchee! as it sat on a tree,
As if ...

Bret Harte

Luke

Wots that youre readin? a novel? A novel! well, darn my skin!
You a man grown and bearded and histin such stuff ez that in
Stuff about gals and their sweethearts! No wonder youre thin ez a knife.
Look at me clar two hundred and never read one in my life!

Thats my opinion o novels. And ez to their lyin round here,
They belong to the Jedges daughter the Jedge who came up last year
On account of his lungs and the mountains and the balsam o pine and fir;
And his daughter well, she read novels, and thats whats the matter with her.

Yet she was sweet on the Jedge, and stuck by him day and night,
Alone in the cabin up yer till she grew like a ghost, all white.
She wus only a slip of a thing, ez light and ez up and away
Ez rifle smoke blown through the woods, but she w...

Bret Harte

Dows Flat

Dows flat. Thats its name;
And I reckon that you
Are a stranger? The same?
Well, I thought it was true,
For thar isnt a man on the river as cant spot the place at first view.

It was called after Dow,
Which the same was an ass,
And as to the how
Thet the thing kem to pass,
Jest tie up your hoss to that buckeye, and sit ye down here in the grass.

You see this yer Dow
Hed the worst kind of luck;
He slipped up somehow
On each thing thet he struck.
Why, ef hed a straddled thet fence-rail, the derned thingd get up and buck.

He mined on the bar
Till he couldnt pay rates;
He was smashed by a car
When he tunneled with Bates;
And right on the top of his trouble kem his wife and five kids from the States.

It was rough, ...

Bret Harte

The Tale of a Pony

Name of my heroine, simply Rose;
Surname, tolerable only in prose;
Habitat, Paris, that is where
She resided for change of air;
Aetat twenty; complexion fair;
Rich, good looking, and debonnaire;
Smarter than Jersey lightning. There!
Thats her photograph, done with care.

In Paris, whatever they do besides,
Every lady in full dress rides!
Moire antiques you never meet
Sweeping the filth of a dirty street
But every womans claim to ton
Depends upon
The team she drives, whether phaeton,
Landau, or britzka. Hence its plain
That Rose, who was of her toilet vain,
Should have a team that ought to be
Equal to any in all Paris!

Bring forth the horse! The commissaire
Bowed, and brought Miss Rose a pair
Leading an equipage rich a...

Bret Harte

In The Stable

What! you don't like him; well, maybe, we all have our fancies, of course:
Brumby to look at, you reckon? Well, no; he's a thoroughbred horse;
Sired by a son of old Panic, look at his ears and his head,
Lop-eared and Roman-nosed, ain't he?, well, that's how the Panics are bred.
Gluttonous, ugly and lazy, rough as a tipcart to ride,
Yet if you offered a sovereign apiece for the hairs on his hide
That wouldn't buy him, nor twice that; while I've a pound to the good,
This here old stager stays by me and lives like a thoroughbred should;
Hunt him away from his bedding, and sit yourself down by the wall,
Till you hear how the old fellow saved me from Gilbert, O'Meally and Hall.

* * * * * * *

Gilbert and Hall and O'Meally, back in the bushranging days,
Made themselves kings...

Andrew Barton Paterson

Jim

Say there! Praps
Some on you chaps
Might know Jim Wild?
Well, no offense:
Thar aint no sense
In gittin riled!

Jim was my chum
Up on the Bar:
Thats why I come
Down from up yar,
Lookin for Jim.
Thank ye, sir! You
Aint of that crew,
Blest if you are!

Money? Not much:
That aint my kind;
I aint no such.
Rum? I dont mind,
Seein its you.

Well, this yer Jim,
Did you know him?
Jes bout your size;
Same kind of eyes;
Well, that is strange:
Why, its two year
Since he came here,
Sick, for a change.

Well, heres to us:
Eh?
The h    you say!
Dead?
That little cuss?

What makes you star,
You over thar?
Cant a man drop
s glass in yer sho...

Bret Harte