Crossing The Plains

What great yoked brutes with briskets low,
With wrinkled necks like buffalo,
With round, brown, liquid, pleading eyes,
That turned so slow and sad to you,
That shone like loves eyes soft with tears,
That seemed to plead, and make replies,
The while they bowed their necks and drew
The creaking load; and looked at you.
Their sable briskets swept the ground,
Their cloven feet kept solemn sound.

Two sullen bullocks led the line,
Their great eyes shining bright like wine;
Two sullen captive kings were they,
That had in time held herds at bay,
And even now they crushed the sod
With stolid sense of majesty,
And stately stepped and stately trod,
As if t were something still to be
Kings even in captivity.

Joaquin Miller

Joaquin Miller, born Cincinnatus Heine Miller, was an American poet and frontiersman known for his romanticized views of the American West. Dubbed the 'Poet of the Sierras,' Miller's works often reflected the landscapes and legends of the American frontier. He was celebrated in the late 19th century but has since become a more obscure literary figure. Despite this, his contributions offer a fascinating glimpse into a period of American history steeped in exploration and adventure.

Joaquin Miller

Peter Cooper

Joaquin Miller, Simple Poetry

The Sierra Nevadas

Joaquin Miller, Simple Poetry

The Voice Of The Dove

Joaquin Miller, 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.

To The Driving Cloud

Gloomy and dark art thou, O chief of the mighty Omahas;
Gloomy and dark as the driving cloud, whose name thou hast taken!
Wrapt in thy scarlet blanket, I see thee stalk through the city's
Narrow and populous streets, as once by the margin of rivers
Stalked those birds unknown, that have left us only their footprints.
What, in a few short years, will remain of thy race but the footprints?

How canst thou walk these streets, who hast trod the green turf of the prairies!
How canst thou breathe this air, who hast breathed the sweet air of the mountains!
Ah! 't is in vain that with lordly looks of disdain thou dost challenge
Looks of disdain in return, and question these walls and these pavements,
Claiming the soil for thy hunting-grounds, while down-trodden millions
Starve in the gar...

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The Ox

Here is a tale for farmer and for peasant:
There was an ox, who might have ploughed for Jason,
So strong was he, his huge head like a bason,
A Gothic helmet with enormous crescent.
Stolid of look and slow of hoof and steady,
Meek was the beast and born but to be driven,
Unmindful of the yoke which toil had given,
Toil with his goad and lash for ever ready.
One day a bull, who was the bullock's neighbor,
Proud as a sultan haremed with his women,
Lowed to the ox who had received a beating:
"You are a fool! What have you for your labour?
Blows and bad food! Go to. Why don't you show men?"
The ox was but an ox and went on eating.

Madison Julius Cawein

Alnaschar And The Oxen

There's a pasture in a valley where the hanging woods divide,
And a Herd lies down and ruminates in peace;
Where the pheasant rules the nooning, and the owl the twilight tide,
And the war-cries of our world die out and cease.
Here I cast aside the burden that each weary week-day brings
And, delivered from the shadows I pursue,
On peaceful, postless, Sabbaths I consider Weighty Things
Such as Sussex Cattle feeding in the dew!
At the gate beside the river where the trouty shallows brawl,
I know the pride that Lobengula felt,
When he bade the bars be lowered of the Royal Cattle Kraal,
And fifteen miles of oxen took the veldt.
From the walls of Bulawayo in unbroken file they came
To where the Mount of Council cuts the blue . . .
I have only six and twenty, but the principle...

Rudyard

Cavalry Crossing A Ford

A line in long array, where they wind betwixt green islands;
They take a serpentine course--their arms flash in the sun--Hark to the musical clank;
Behold the silvery river--in it the splashing horses, loitering, stop to drink;
Behold the brown-faced men--each group, each person, a picture--the negligent rest on the saddles;
Some emerge on the opposite bank--others are just entering the ford--while,
Scarlet, and blue, and snowy white,
The guidon flags flutter gaily in the wind.

Walt Whitman

The Race For Homes.

APRIL 22, 1889.


    Behold! As from the shades of night,
    An army gathers full of might,
    And strong with constant courage stands
    'Tween civilized and savage lands,
    Where, vast in power, the legion waits
    The turning of the desert gates,
    That men of might may enter in
    And progress all her glories win!
    Lo, where these thousands make assail,
    The barren ages all shall fail,
    And swift advancement far be hurled,
    O'er sleeping empires and the world!

    The morning hours haste hurried by;
    Behold! The noon is drawing nigh!
    The anxious host with careful eyes
    Marks well each rapid hour that flies,
    While hope, exulting, wildly rolls
    The highest, such as filled the souls
    Of ...

Freeman Edwin Miller

With The Cattle

The drought is down on field and flock,
The river-bed is dry;
And we must shift the starving stock
Before the cattle die.
We muster up with weary hearts
At breaking of the day,
And turn our heads to foreign parts,
To take the stock away.
And it's hunt 'em up and dog 'em,
And it's get the whip and flog 'em,
For it's weary work, is droving, then they're dying every day;
By stock routes bare and eaten,
On dusty roads and beaten,
With half a chance to save their lives we take the stock away.

We cannot use the whip for shame
On beasts that crawl along;
We have to drop the weak and lame,
And try to save the strong;
The wrath of God is on the track,
The drought fiend holds his sway;
With blows and cries and stockwhip crack
We take the s...

Andrew Barton Paterson