| Jessie B. Rittenhouse, ed. (18691948). The Second Book of Modern Verse. 1922. |
| |
| Have you an Eye |
| | | Edwin Ford Piper |
| |
| |
| HAVE you an eye for the trails, the trails, | |
| The old mark and the new? | |
| What scurried here, what loitered there, | |
| In the dust and in the dew? | |
| |
| Have you an eye for the beaten track, | 5 |
| The old hoof and the young? | |
| Come name me the drivers of yesterday, | |
| Sing me the songs they sung. | |
| |
| O, was it a schooner last went by, | |
| And where will it ford the stream? | 10 |
| Where will it halt in the early dusk, | |
| And where will the camp-fire gleam? | |
| |
| They used to take the shortest cut | |
| The cattle trails had made; | |
| Get down the hill by the easy slope | 15 |
| To the water and the shade. | |
| |
| But its barbed wire fence, and section line, | |
| And kill-horse travel now; | |
| Scoot you down the canyon bank, | |
| The old roads under plough. | 20 |
| |
| Have you an eye for the laden wheel, | |
| The worn tire or the new? | |
| Or the sign of the prairie ponys hoof | |
| Was never trimmed for shoe? | |
| |
|
|
|