Poem : The High-heeled Boots
Poet : Arthur Chapman
He stands upon the city street, keen-eyed, and brown of face, He seems to bring a breath of air from some broad prairie space; He’s perched upon a pair of heels that fit the stirrup’s curve, That meet the bucking bronco’s plunge and counteract each swerve; And of all the chaps with whom the gods are ever in cahoots Give me the cattle-puncher in the high-heeled boots. He brings a hint of wider skies, of ranges that are vast, Of manful vigils in the days when sweeps the wintry blast; All out of step with things in town, he sees the crowd surge by; The sage is in his nostrils still—he hears the gaunt wolf cry; He rides as Alexander rode—the bell rings when he shoots— The gallant cattle-puncher in the high-heeled boots. He is the last of that old guard defending Cattle Land, Those knights who jousted for the cause—blood brothers of the brand; But now they’ve fenced the water-hole, they’re harrowing the plain, They’re changing all the sagebrush flats to fields of waving grain; The cowmen will be gone, they say, and there are no recruits— Good-bye, brave cattle-puncher in the high-heeled boots!
