Classic Poem

High are the mountains and low is the plain,
Where Billy the Kid comes a-ridin' again.

Old Juánico sees him—black on the moon,
And two haggard horsemen come following soon.

Now topping the rim-rock, now hid in a vale,
Four ghostly white riders press close on his trail.

No thudding of hoofbeats, no sound anywhere,
But nine silent dead men are racing the air.

Beyond the old courthouse and following fast,
The tenth pale pursuer springs out of the past.

Old Juánico sees them—no other eye can,
The galloping Kid and his strange caravan.

Fort Sumner to White Oaks, Tularosa to Bent—
Gaunt horsemen await him at each settlement.

For blood's in the moonmist, as two dozen dead
Swoop down the dim trails where their killer has fled.

Gray in the mountains and white on the plain,
At moon haunted midnight they're riding again.

Time shadows the silence in old Lincoln town—
Look! Billy the Kid comes a-galloping down!