The old West, the old time,
The old wind singing through
The red, red grass a thousand miles –
And Spanish Johnny, you!
He’d sit beside the water ditch
When all his herd was in,
And never mind a child, but sing
To his mandolin.
The big stars, the blue night,
The moon-enchanted lane;
The olive man who never spoke,
But sang the songs of Spain.
His speech with men was wicked talk –
To hear it was a sin;
But those were golden things he said
To his mandolin.
The gold songs, the gold stars,
The world so golden then;
And the hand so tender to a child –
Had killed so many men.
He died a hard death long ago
Before the Road came in –
The night before he swung, he sang
To his mandolin.
—————
The End
And that’s the End of the Poem
© Poetry Monster, 2021.
Poetry Monster — the ultimate repository of world poetry.
Poetry Monster — the multilingual library of poetic works. Here you’ll find original poems, poetry translations, ancient verses, ballads and even folk tales.
Poetry Monster (or even The Poetry Monster) — is also an international multilingual community of poets and poetry connoisseurs. Join us:
Some external links: The Bat’s Poetry Cave. — Fledermaus’s poetry site. Talking Writing Monster. — the irreverent and irrelevant chatter on subjects both serious and not quite. A free for all board. You can scribble anything on it without registration (but it doesn’t let spammers in). You can even post your poems. Qwant.com. — a search engine from France. It’s an alternative because there are a few alternatives, like Bing, Duckduckgo, and Ecosia. And there is Yandex, the ultimate language-oriented search engine for the Russophone world. Commercial Links: Russian Commerce – the foreign trade assistance agency Other links: Poems and poetry in Russian (if you are reading this in English, as you obviously are, then you’d have to switch the language, the language switch is on the menu. More on languages)
