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Show 5 Till-- ; HFK THK RKMARKAHLK lC)KM. "I. A SC A." THK BANKRUPT. The air was heavy, the night uav hot! vtt by her side, and forgot forgot Frgot the herd that wa taking its iet; Forgot that the air was cloe oppirt, I hat the lexis noiihn come vnhhnand oon, lu the dead of night or the blae of noon; That once Id the herd at it' lrMth take fright And nothing on earth can stop the (light; And woe to the rider; woe to the 'teed, W ho falls in front uf the mad stampede! Was that thunder: rose and gr.sped tin cord Of my wift mustang, without a word. I Many, many years ago, an Lnjdidiinan unit to Texas, spent a couple of years at ami then returned to his native country. Shortly afterwards a poem entitled, MLsca." appeared in a London weekly. The authors name was not printed, and up to this day, he is unknown. The production is crude in places, but it wonderful power to stir the reader. Since its first appearance there have been one or two polished versions of it. but the following is the poem in full, as utiginally published, with all of its nudities and l.rnutii : I want fiw life, want fres'i air. cow-punchin- g pos-M-sse- sa 1 I -- Tin igli for the canter after the cattle. crack of the whips, like dints in a bittle. An : the melee of hoofs and horns and heads 'That wars and wrangles and scatters and spreads. With the green beneath and the blue above, And d ash. and danger, and life, and love And La sea ! She used to ride On a mouse gray mustang close to my side. With blue scrape and bright bell spur. I laughed with joy as I looked at her. Little she knew of books or creeds. An Ave Maria" sufficed for her needs. Little she cared, save to be by my side. And to ride with me and ride and ride From San Sabas shore to Lavacas tide. 1 1 sprang to the saddle, she clung behind. Away, on a hot chase down the wind! And never was fox hunt half so hard! And never was steed so little spared! For we rode for our lives! You shall hear how we fared In Texas, down by the Rio Grande. The mustang llevv. and we urged him on; There was one cha-- e h it ind you have but one Halt, jump to tilt ground, and shoot ym Itor-- e. Crouch under his caicass and t ike your chance! And if the steers in their frantic course Dont batter you both to pieces at once, You may thank your st us! If not, g To the quickening kiss and the sigh, And the open air and the open sky. In Texas, down by the Rio Grande! omnajn'citfJ.l Then are times when a man is led to wish that the crowd over in the state penitentiary amid he augmented by several dozen of ones acquaintances. In writing thus we have in mind the voluntary bankrupt -- the man who is trusted and then like a coward crawls behind the federal statute and deflates that his friends formed too high an estimate of him. The highwayman who at the point of a gun takes away your money, is a gentleman comparad with the moral leper whom you introduce to your wife, your friend and business associates; who borrows your money under the pretext of being in great distress, and then when he obtains it, seeks a legal barrier from behind which to declare that you have; no recourse on him. In a certain section of our city there an women who have naught but one purpose! to minister to the most de- grading pnsshms of man; whose deeds are of the darkness and must be covered up by the light of day; who are hardened to their conditions which decrees their daily existence to depend on feedshreds ing off ephemeral, of manhood; but even they, poor unhelpful beings as they are, often try to She was as bold as the billows that beat! hide their shame beneath the silken She was as wild as the breezes that blow! The cattle gained on us. and, just as frit From her little head to her little feet draperies earned by giving up the most behind in my belt, For my old She was swayed in her suppleness to and fro Down came the in their crown of rightmustang and down came we, lustrous star But there are voluntary By each gust of passion. Clinging together, and what was the rest ? eousness. A sapling grown on a Kansas blull. A body that spread itself on my breast, walking the streets of Salt bankrupts is That wars with the wind when the weather Two arms that shielded mv clizzv head, Lake City who actually boast of the rough Two lips that hard on my lips were pressed! fact that they have taken refuge beIs like this Lasca -- this love of mine. Then came the thunder in my cars, hind the law; apparently feel proud of Hut once when I made her jealous, for fun, As over us surged the sea of steers, the fact that they are defrauding the into blood Blows that beat my eves, Bv something Id said or looked or done, Ye somepeople who trusted them. rise' could when And One Sunday in San Antonio, times think that a man who will go into dead! was Lasca To a glorious girl on the Alamo, bankruptcy must be a moral wreck She drew from hergartera dear little dagger, I gouged out a grave a few fret deep, and as such, dangerous to society. And sting or wasp! it made me stagger '1 here Aid there, in earth's arms, I laid her to exceptions to may be An inch to the left or an inch to the right, the rule, but the conscience of the masleep! And I shouldnt be maundering here toAnd there she is sleeping, and no one knows, jority of them isso sluggish that it is no night; While the summer shines and the winter longer a safe guide. But she sobbed, and, sobbing, so quickly snows, We ask the reader who differ with bound hav e flowers the a For spread many year us to look up the record of voluntary Her torn reboso the wound around A pall of petals above her head; cases in Utah, then show That I quite forgave her, and scratches dont And the little gray hawk hangs poised in air, bankruptcy count us one who lias accumulated a greater here and there; trots the And sly coyote In Texas, down by the Rio Grande. And the black snake glides and glistens and or less amount, of somebody elses money, and after having spent the same slides Her eye was brown a deep, dark brown in riotious living or bad speculation, Her hair was darker than her eye; Into a rift of the cottonwood tree; hires a lawyer to put him through bankAnd something in her smile or frown, long-draw- n beer-soake- d I six-shoot- er 1 Curled crimson lip and instep high, Showed that there ran in each blue vein Mixed with the milder Aztec strain, The glorious vintage of old Spain. She was alive in every limb With feeling to her finger tips; And when the sun is like a fire, And sky one shining soft sapphire, One does not drink in little sips. And the buzzard sails on and comes and is gone Stately and still as a ship at sea! And they wonder why I do not care For the things that are like the tilings that were. But half my heart lies buried there. In Texas, with Lasca, down by the Rio G ra n d c . ruptcy, and we will show you a man who is not entitled to be trusted, who is dishonest and whose moral sense makes him dangerous. Then, if you are not satisfied, loan your hard eared shekels to some affected friend and let him plead exemption behind the law for paying you back. |