Dick Kimball, the soldier; every inch of him a handsome man;
Alex and Bruce and Dave and George and "Freshman" Mathis and Clarence, the six Freshmen we "took in"; while Ike MacFarland, Alfred Pierce Ward, and Guy and Charlie Witt were still in the process of assimilation,—
To this group of God's good fellows, I dedicate this little book.
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No loopholes now are framing Lean faces, grim and brown, No more keen eyes are aiming To bring the redskin down; But every wind careening Seems here to breathe a song — A song of brave careering, A saga of the strong. |
FOREWORD
In collecting, arranging, editing, and preserving the "Songs of the Cattle Trail and Cow Camp," my friend John Lomax has performed a real service to American literature and to America. No verse is closer to the soil than this; none more realistic in the best sense of that much-abused word; none more truly interprets and expresses a part of our national life. To understand and appreciate these lyrics one should hear Mr. Lomax talk about them and sing them; for they were made for the voice to pronounce and for the ears to hear, rather than for the lamplit silence of the library. They are as oral as the chants of Vachel Lindsay; and when one has the pleasure of listening to Mr. Lomax — who loves these verses and the men who first sang them — one reconstructs in imagination the appropriate figures and romantic setting.
For nothing is so romantic as life itself. None of our illusions about life is so romantic as the truth. Hence the purest realism appeals to the mature imagination more powerfully than any impossible prettiness can do. The more we know of individual and universal life, the more we are excited and stimulated.