Songs of the Cattle Trail and Cow Camp · Chapter
The Old Cowman explained
The narrator reflects on returning to a valley range after many years, only to find it transformed by fences and settlement.
What happens
The narrator reflects on returning to a valley range after many years, only to find it transformed by fences and settlement. He mourns the loss of the open, unfenced land that once belonged to God, the Government, and the people, and expresses a deep nostalgia for the freedom of the past. He wishes to be buried in a wide, lonely stretch of West where cattle and coyotes roam, but insists that his grave not be fenced in.
Themes in this chapter
Nostalgia and Loss
The entire poem is a lament for the lost open range, with the narrator mourning the fences and settlement that have replaced the freedom of his youth.
Freedom and Independence
The narrator celebrates the former unbounded landscape where 'room to go and come' was abundant, contrasting it with the constrained, fenced-in present.
Characters to notice
- Charles Badger Clark
The speaker and author of the poem, expressing personal nostalgia and lament over the fencing of the open range.
Key passages
“I rode across a valley range I hadn’t seen for years. The trail was all so spoilt and strange It nearly fetched the tears.”
The narrator returns to a familiar valley after many years and finds the landscape so altered that it brings him to tears.
Opens the poem with a sense of loss and disorientation.
“Oh, it’s squeak! squeak! squeak! Hear ’em stretchin’ of the wire! The nester brand is on the land; I reckon I’ll retire.”
The sound of barbed wire being stretched symbolizes the encroachment of settlers, prompting the narrator to consider giving up his way of life.
Recurring refrain emphasizing the relentless spread of fences.
“’Twas good to live when all the sod, Without no fence nor fuss, Belonged in partnership to God, The Government and us.”
The narrator recalls a time when the land was shared freely among God, the government, and the people, without private ownership or conflict.
Expresses the ideal of communal, open-range living.
“Let cattle rub my tombstone down And coyotes mourn their kin, Let hawses paw and tramp the moun’— But don’t you fence it in!”
The narrator wishes for a natural, unenclosed burial site where animals roam freely, explicitly forbidding any fence around his grave.
Final plea for freedom even in death.