Classic Poem

White, the winding roadway shines,
Scantily shadowed by ye pines,
Where ye Mover moveth slow,
Wearily and Westward, ho!

Ark of his before the wind,
With its jolly-boat behind!
Yaller-dog, that fares at one
With his wife and rifle-gun!

And ye row of little eyes
Graded to an easy rise,
With, by whiles, a level where
Twins alleviate ye stair.

Down the dale and up the hill
So the Mover moveth still,
He and all his household band
Bound to seek the promised land.

Scarce the girdled pines are dead
On the hills he harvested;
Scarce the blessed sunlight blinks
Through his cabin's wasted chinks

Ere a vision, vague and dim,
Hints a " better place " for him;
Deeper soil and softer sun,
Somewhere else, and farther on!

Where the woods supply his wants;
Where 'tis " dangerous to plant! "
Where ye cattle range at will,
And ye roads run, all, down hill
To market, meeting house and mill.

Where, with scarce a tax, the State
Grows, in all good grandeur, great,
Where but bad folks fear the laws,
And none but " Browns " are Governors.

So ye Mover cocks his eye,
Curves his spine and smites his thigh,
While the hope his heart approves
Comes to move him and he moves .

So ye Mover moveth still
Up ye dale and down ye hill,
Leaving but this sad surmise,
" Where he moves to when he dies? "

Where ye righteous rest, we know,
Also where ye wicked go!
But what happy place may be
Ye " Mover's " is a mystery!

How were mortal mover blest
In world without a West!
Who, with half a hemisphere,
Weeps a wilderness to clear!

Speed we then the Mover man
In his moving while he can —
Blest if not a hope as dim
Moveth us as moveth him.