She was just a country maiden with ambitions of her own,
She could wash and she could churn and she could cook,
But she longed for broader vision and a bigger, better zone,
And she studied all about it in a book;
She'd a home and she had kindred, she'd a roof above her head,
She had time for work and leisure, she'd a chance to love and wed;
But they saw her leave the village—they had better seen her dead—
And the City sucked her in.
Now there's one of them a millionaire and one of them in jail,
And one of them is working on the street;
And one is washing dishes, and one has "hit the trail,"
For six have drunk the sorrows of defeat;
And one that's never spoken of where once she was supreme,
And one—they found him floating in an eddy of the stream:
They have paid the price of knowledge, they have dreamed their little dream:
And the City sucked them in.
Knew you the men of the Old Guard? Men of the camp and trail;
Guard of the van when Time began in the land of grass and gale,
Of a sky-wide land they seized command where the mightiest prevail.
Who were the men of the Old Guard? Giants of strength and will,
Trained in the school of hard-luck rule and daring to die or kill;
Staking their lives, and their young, and wives, on the road up Fortune's hill.
Whence were the men of the Old Guard? Heroes of '82;
From swamp and ledge and ocean's edge they came to see and do,
And they failed at first, and the land they cursed, but they stayed and struggled through.
Hope of the men of the Old Guard? Little but hope was theirs;
With empty hand in an untried land they clutched at wheat and tares,
And home at night by the wood-fire light was answer to their prayers.
Way of the men of the Old Guard? What of their end and way?
You may find their bones by the lime-white stones where the sun-dried sleugh-holes lay,
For the Goddess Trade is a costly jade, and they were [the] ones to pay.