Rough shod they came all the way from Medicine Hat, riding golden on the mustangs of morning. Among them were the big blond Swedes: Lar and Nor and Thorkel. Men fearless of the storm, the blast, the cold-shivered cry of the coyote, disease and famine, everything. They brought with them Swede women with gold-wire braided hair; those schooled in the sagas of fiords and dragon ships and poppies of the midnight sky. They passed like crows in the humdrum of passage, hub-deep in mire, with kettles hanging and old blankets flapping a song. At trail's end they picked a skerry spot and began whetting axes, toppling the timbers, working like the first concrete builders, the beavers. They lived on toiling and singing, tucked away in hungry shacks of desolation where sometime little cities clung to rail and water routes. Today by Minnesota's waters they tell how their forebears came; those of the midnight sky, the big blond Swedes: Lar and Nor and Thorkel. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...AN ODE, PARAPHRASED: THE CUP by ANACREON METRICAL FEET by SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE FRAGMENT THIRTY-SIX by HILDA DOOLITTLE CHILD AND MOTHER by EUGENE FIELD THE WATERFALL by HENRY VAUGHAN THE SPIRIT AND THE CUP by A. E. ANDERSON THERE IS NO LOVING AFTER DEATH by ASCLEPIADES OF SAMOS THE DRUG-SHOP, OR, ENDYMION IN EDMONSTOUN by STEPHEN VINCENT BENET |