Tazewell Republican. [volume] (Tazewell, Va.) 1892-1919, 1900-01-25
THE LOGAN GRAZiER.
RY THOMAS nuNN ENGLIsn.

BY THOMAS DUNN ENGLISH.
At dawn to where the herbage grows
Up yonder hill the grazier goes.
Obedient to his every word,
Before him stalk the lowing herd.
Reluctant in the misty morn,
With stamping hoOf and tossing horn.
With heightened low and angry moan,
Go black and dappled, red and roam.
Through drain and hollow, up the hill
They pass, obedient to his will.
The slender OK and mighty bull
The grazier thinks them beautiful.
You see less beauty in the herd,
Than in yon Orange-tinted Bird
You fix your better pleased gaze
On yon broad sweep of emerald maize,
Yon NAPLES on the hillside high,
Or On yOn field of waving rye.
More pleased with maize, or rye, or trees
The grazier's eyes are not on these.
He sees a netted purse of gold,
In every believing three-year-o!d.
He sees new comforts round his home,
When buyers down from Tazewell come.
He sees his cabin nigh the creek,
Its mud daubed chimneys changed to brick.
It's rude logs hid by clap-boards sawed,
Split shingles on its roof so broad
New puncheons on the worn out floor
A picket fence before the door,
And cups Of tin and plates Of delf
And pewter spoons, adorn the shelf.
Close where the rife hangs on hook
On cupboard top are rows of books
The Pilgrim of the dreaming John,
And Weem's life of Marion;
The well-thumbed speeches of Calhoun,
The pictured life of Daniel Boone;
D'Aubienes s story told so well,
How Luther fought and Cranmer fell;
To please his wife a yellow gown,
And beads to deck his daughters brown.
A jack-knife for his youngest son,
A rife for his oldest one.
All these to him the cattle low,
As up the hill they slowly go.
He fear 10 ravage of disease,
'Mong brutes so strong and fat as these.
There's salt enough for them In store,
Brought from Kanawha's muddy shore.
The herbage on the hill is good,
The fern is thick within the wood.
There's tender grass in yonder drain,
And pea-vine on the summit plain.
High thought of gain that moment thrills
The grazier of the Logan hills.
He envies not the hero bold,
He cares not who may Office hold.
The statesman's pride, the stout mans lin
The lovers hopes are naught to him.
H!s mind three things alone receives-
His wife, his children, and his beeves.
So these may flourish and be fair,
All else around is smoke and air.
Oh, Logan grazier, stout and strong,
Despising fraud, defying wrong;
Brave as thine ancestors who bore
The sears of combat long and sore,
And fearless met in battle shock,
The wild and painted Shawanock,
True as the rife in thy hand,
And generous as thy fertile land
Full oft I've eaten by thy side
Thy cakes of corn and venison fried.
Oft in thy cabin as thy guest
Have stretched my weary limbs to rest.
love to note thy honest brow,
Staunch friend and true companion thou
And know no manlier form is seen,
Than dwells within the coat of jean;
Truth fills those eyes 50 keenly set
Beneath the fox-skin cap, andyet
! would not that thy lot were mine,
would not that my lot were thine.
Guard thou thy beeves and count thy gold
Be glad when those great herds are sold.
For me, by midnight lamp, pore
My manuscript in silence o'er.
Each to the path that suits his feet;
Each toll, for time is moving fleet,
And soon in wooden shroud arrayed,
Both II, our narrow coffins laid,
1t matters not if cattle fair,
Or making songs has been our care.
The poets and the graziers form
Shall feed alike the greedy worm
Shall pass the poets glowing words
Shall pass the grazier's lowing herds;
And from mems memory fade away
Both graZier's shout and poets lay.