Analysis of Old Spookses' Pass
I.
WE'D camped that night on Yaller Bull Flat,--
Thar was Possum Billy, an' Tom, an' me.
Right smart at throwin' a lariat
Was them two fellers, as ever I see;
An' for ridin' a broncho, or argyin' squar
With the devil roll'd up in the hide of a mule,
Them two fellers that camp'd with me thar
Would hev made an' or'nary feller a fool.
II.
Fur argyfyin' in any way,
Thet hed to be argy'd with sinew an' bone,
I never see'd fellers could argy like them;
But just right har I will hev to own
Thet whar brains come in in the game of life,
They held the poorest keerds in the lot;
An' when hands was shown, some other chap
Rak'd in the hull of the blamed old pot!
III.
We was short of hands, the herd was large,
An' watch an' watch we divided the night;
We could hear the coyotes howl an' whine,
But the darned critters kept out of sight
Of the camp-fire blazin'; an' now an' then
Thar cum a rustle an' sort of rush--
A rattle a-sneakin' away from the blaze,
Thro' the rattlin', cracklin' grey sage bush.
IV.
We'd chanc'd that night on a pootyish lot,
With a tol'ble show of tall, sweet grass--
We was takin' Speredo's drove across
The Rockies, by way of "Old Spookses' Pass"--
An' a mite of a creek went crinklin' down,
Like a "pocket" bust in the rocks overhead,
Consid'able shrunk, by the summer drought,
To a silver streak in its gravelly bed.
V.
'Twas a fairish spot fur to camp a' night;
An' chipper I felt, tho' sort of skeer'd
That them two cowboys with only me,
Couldn't boss three thousand head of a herd.
I took the fust of the watch myself;
An' as the red sun down the mountains sprang,
I roll'd a fresh quid, an' got on the back
Of my peart leetle chunk of a tough mustang.
VI.
An' Possum Billy was sleepin' sound
Es only a cowboy knows how to sleep;
An' Tommy's snores would hev made a old
Buffalo bull feel kind o' cheap.
Wal, pard, I reckin' thar's no sech time
For dwind'lin' a chap in his own conceit,
Es when them mountains an' awful stars,
Jest hark to the tramp of his mustang's feet.
VII.
It 'pears to me that them solemn hills
Beckin' them stars so big an' calm,
An' whisper, "Make tracks this way, my friends,
We've ringed in here a specimen man;
He's here alone, so we'll take a look
Thro' his ganzy an' vest, an' his blood an' bone,
An post ourselves as to whether his heart
Is flesh, or a rotten, made-up stone."
VIII.
An' it's often seemed, on a midnight watch,
When the mountains blacken'd the dry, brown sod,
That a chap, if he shut his eyes, might grip
The great kind hand of his Father-God.
I rode round the herd at a sort of walk--
The shadders come stealin' thick an' black;
I'd jest got to leave tew thet thar chunk
Of a mustang tew keep in the proper track.
IX.
Ever see'd a herd ring'd in at night?
Wal, it's sort of cur'us,-- the watchin' sky,
The howl of coyotes a great black mass,
With thar an' thar the gleam of a eye
An' the white of a horn an', now an' then,
An' old bull liftin' his shaggy head,
With a beller like a broke-up thunder growl--
An' the summer lightnin', quick an' red,
X.
Twistin' an' turnin' amid the stars,
Silent as snakes at play in the grass,
An' plungin' thar fangs in the bare old skulls
Of the mountains, frownin' above the Pass.
An' all so still, that the leetle crick,
Twinklin' an' crinklin' frum stone to stone,
Grows louder an' louder, an' fills the air
With a cur'us sort of a singin' tone.
It ain't no matter wharever ye be,
(I'll 'low it's a cur'us sort of case)
Whar thar's runnin' water, it's sure to speak
Of folks tew home an' the old home place;
XI.
An' yer bound tew listen an' hear it talk,
Es yer mustang crunches the dry, bald sod;
Fur I reckin' the hills, an' stars, an' creek
Are all of 'em preachers sent by God.
An' them mountains talk tew a chap this way:
"Climb, if ye can, ye degenerate cuss!"
An' the stars smile down on a man, an say,
"Come higher, poor critter, come up tew us!"
XII.
An' I reckin', pard, thar is One above
The highest old star that a chap can see,
An' He says, in a solid, etarnal way,
Scheme | Text too long |
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Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1 11111111 1110101111 11110100 1111011011 11101111 101011001101 111011111 11111101001 1 110101 111111111 1101101111 111111111 1111000111 110101001 111111101 100110111 1 111110111 1111101001 1110010111 101101111 1011011111 110101111 0100101101 1011111 1 11111011 10111111 1111101 010111111 101101111 10101001101 1110101 10101011001 1 101111101 110111111 11111101 1011101101 11011011 1101110101 1101111101 111111011 1 11010111 110011111 110111101 1011111 11111111 110101101 111101101 111011111 1 111111101 1111111 110111111 110101001 110111101 1111111111 11001111011 111010111 1 111011011 1010100111 1011111111 011111101 1110110111 0111111 111111111 1011100101 1 101011011 111111011 0110100111 111101101 1011011111 111101101 10101011101 10101111 1 1110101 101111001 111100111 101010101 11111011 1111111 1101101101 101111011 11110111 111011111 111101111 111110111 1 1111101111 111100111 111011111 111110111 1110110111 1111101001 1011110111 1101101111 1 111111101 0101110111 111001011 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 4,308 |
Words | 782 |
Sentences | 31 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 107 |
Lines Amount | 107 |
Letters per line (avg) | 27 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 2,939 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 778 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 4:05 min read
- 87 Views
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"Old Spookses' Pass" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/19917/old-spookses%27-pass>.
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