The Santa Fe Trail Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: A BCD E FAAAGG HGIJKKLLAAALLLLLMGGL LLL N ODDPPQQ OOAALLRRSS LLTT UUVVWXW YCZCWA2A2WZMMWWUCLLW UB2DDC2ULU ZLAAWGGALGGLODLLD2E2 WZE2WOWWWWWLLMWF2F2L AGGODLLD2E2WZE2WA2WL OAAAGGGG2G2FLAAGG ZOWWH2H2ZZC2C2WWLLLL OLOLDAZWZDWA Humoresque | A |
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I asked the old Negro What is that bird that sings so well | B |
He answered That is the Rachel Jane Hasn't it another name | C |
lark or thrush or the like No Jus' Rachel Jane | D |
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I In which a Racing Auto comes from the East | E |
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To be sung delicately to an improvised tune | F |
This is the order of the music of the morning | A |
First from the far East comes but a crooning | A |
The crooning turns to a sunrise singing | A |
Hark to the calm horn balm horn psalm horn | G |
Hark to the faint horn quaint horn saint horn | G |
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To be sung or read with great speed | H |
Hark to the pace horn chase horn race horn | G |
And the holy veil of the dawn has gone | I |
Swiftly the brazen car comes on | J |
It burns in the East as the sunrise burns | K |
I see great flashes where the far trail turns | K |
Its eyes are lamps like the eyes of dragons | L |
It drinks gasoline from big red flagons | L |
Butting through the delicate mists of the morning | A |
It comes like lightning goes past roaring | A |
It will hail all the wind mills taunting ringing | A |
Dodge the cyclones | L |
Count the milestones | L |
On through the ranges the prairie dog tills | L |
Scooting past the cattle on the thousand hills | L |
To be read or sung in a rolling bass | L |
with some deliberation | M |
Ho for the tear horn scare horn dare horn | G |
Ho for the gay horn bark horn bay horn | G |
Ho for Kansas land that restores us | L |
When houses choke us and great books bore us | L |
Sunrise Kansas harvester's Kansas | L |
A million men have found you before us | L |
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II In which Many Autos pass Westward | N |
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In an even deliberate narrative manner | O |
I want live things in their pride to remain | D |
I will not kill one grasshopper vain | D |
Though he eats a hole in my shirt like a door | P |
I let him out give him one chance more | P |
Perhaps while he gnaws my hat in his whim | Q |
Grasshopper lyrics occur to him | Q |
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I am a tramp by the long trail's border | O |
Given to squalor rags and disorder | O |
I nap and amble and yawn and look | A |
Write fool thoughts in my grubby book | A |
Recite to the children explore at my ease | L |
Work when I work beg when I please | L |
Give crank drawings that make folks stare | R |
To the half grown boys in the sunset glare | R |
And get me a place to sleep in the hay | S |
At the end of a live and let live day | S |
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I find in the stubble of the new cut weeds | L |
A whisper and a feasting all one needs | L |
The whisper of the strawberries white and red | T |
Here where the new cut weeds lie dead | T |
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But I would not walk all alone till I die | U |
Without some life drunk horns going by | U |
Up round this apple earth they come | V |
Blasting the whispers of the morning dumb | V |
Cars in a plain realistic row | W |
And fair dreams fade | X |
When the raw horns blow | W |
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On each snapping pennant | Y |
A big black name | C |
The careering city | Z |
Whence each car came | C |
Like a train caller in a Union Depot | W |
They tour from Memphis Atlanta Savannah | A2 |
Tallahassee and Texarkana | A2 |
They tour from St Louis Columbus Manistee | W |
They tour from Peoria Davenport Kankakee | Z |
Cars from Concord Niagara Boston | M |
Cars from Topeka Emporia and Austin | M |
Cars from Chicago Hannibal Cairo | W |
Cars from Alton Oswego Toledo | W |
Cars from Buffalo Kokomo Delphi | U |
Cars from Lodi Carmi Loami | C |
Ho for Kansas land that restores us | L |
When houses choke us and great books bore us | L |
While I watch the highroad | W |
And look at the sky | U |
While I watch the clouds in amazing grandeur | B2 |
Roll their legions without rain | D |
Over the blistering Kansas plain | D |
While I sit by the milestone | C2 |
And watch the sky | U |
The United States | L |
Goes by | U |
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To be given very harshly | Z |
with a snapping explosiveness | L |
Listen to the iron horns ripping racking | A |
Listen to the quack horns slack and clacking | A |
Way down the road trilling like a toad | W |
Here comes the dice horn here comes the vice horn | G |
Here comes the snarl horn brawl horn lewd horn | G |
Followed by the prude horn bleak and squeaking | A |
Some of them from Kansas some of them from Kansas | L |
Here comes the hod horn plod horn sod horn | G |
Nevermore to roam horn loam horn home horn | G |
Some of them from Kansas some of them from Kansas | L |
To be read or sung well nigh in a whisper | O |
Far away the Rachel Jane | D |
Not defeated by the horns | L |
Sings amid a hedge of thorns | L |
Love and life | D2 |
Eternal youth | E2 |
Sweet sweet sweet sweet | W |
Dew and glory | Z |
Love and truth | E2 |
Sweet sweet sweet sweet | W |
Louder and louder faster and faster | O |
WHILE SMOKE BLACK FREIGHTS ON THE DOUBLE TRACKED RAILROAD | W |
DRIVEN AS THOUGH BY THE FOUL FIEND'S OX GOAD | W |
SCREAMING TO THE WEST COAST SCREAMING TO THE EAST | W |
CARRY OFF A HARVEST BRING BACK A FEAST | W |
HARVESTING MACHINERY AND HARNESS FOR THE BEAST | W |
THE HAND CARS WHIZ AND RATTLE ON THE RAILS | L |
THE SUNLIGHT FLASHES ON THE TIN DINNER PAILS | L |
In a rolling bass with increasing deliberation | M |
And then in an instant | W |
Ye modern men | F2 |
Behold the procession once again | F2 |
With a snapping explosiveness | L |
Listen to the iron horns ripping racking | A |
Listen to the wise horn desperate to advise horn | G |
Listen to the fast horn kill horn blast horn | G |
To be sung or read well nigh in a whisper | O |
Far away the Rachel Jane | D |
Not defeated by the horns | L |
Sings amid a hedge of thorns | L |
Love and life | D2 |
Eternal youth | E2 |
Sweet sweet sweet sweet | W |
Dew and glory | Z |
Love and truth | E2 |
Sweet sweet sweet sweet | W |
To be brawled in the beginning with a | A2 |
snapping explosiveness ending in a languorous chant | W |
The mufflers open on a score of cars | L |
With wonderful thunder | O |
CRACK CRACK CRACK | A |
CRACK CRACK CRACK CRACK | A |
CRACK CRACK CRACK | A |
Listen to the gold horn | G |
Old horn | G |
Cold horn | G |
And all of the tunes till the night comes down | G2 |
On hay stack and ant hill and wind bitten town | G2 |
To be sung to exactly the same whispered tune | F |
as the first five lines | L |
Then far in the west as in the beginning | A |
Dim in the distance sweet in retreating | A |
Hark to the faint horn quaint horn saint horn | G |
Hark to the calm horn balm horn psalm horn | G |
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This section beginning sonorously | Z |
ending in a languorous whisper | O |
They are hunting the goals that they understand | W |
San Francisco and the brown sea sand | W |
My goal is the mystery the beggars win | H2 |
I am caught in the web the night winds spin | H2 |
The edge of the wheat ridge speaks to me | Z |
I talk with the leaves of the mulberry tree | Z |
And now I hear as I sit all alone | C2 |
In the dusk by another big Santa Fe stone | C2 |
The souls of the tall corn gathering round | W |
And the gay little souls of the grass in the ground | W |
Listen to the tale the cotton wood tells | L |
Listen to the wind mills singing o'er the wells | L |
Listen to the whistling flutes without price | L |
Of myriad prophets out of paradise | L |
Harken to the wonder | O |
That the night air carries | L |
Listen to the whisper | O |
Of the prairie fairies | L |
Singing o'er the fairy plain | D |
To the same whispered tune as the Rachel Jane song | A |
but very slowly | Z |
Sweet sweet sweet sweet | W |
Love and glory | Z |
Stars and rain | D |
Sweet sweet sweet sweet | W |
Vachel Lindsay
(1)
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