In praise of johnny appleseed
I. Over the Appalachian
Barricade
In the days of
President Washington,
The glory of the
nations,
Dust and ashes,
Snow and sleet,
And hay and oats
and wheat,
Blew west,
Crossed the Appalachians,
Found the glades
of rotting leaves, the soft deer-pastures,
The farms of the
far-off future
In the forsest.
Colts jumped the
fence,
Snorting, ramping,
snapping, sniffing,
With gastronomic
calculations,
Crossed the Appalacians,
The east walls
of our citadel,
And turned to
gold-honored unicorns,
Feasting in the
dim volunteer farms of the forest.
Stripedest, kickingest,
kittens escaped,
Caterwauling "Yankee
Doodle Dandy."
Renounced their
poor relations,
Crossed the Appalachians,
And turned to
tiny tigers
In the humorous
forest.
Chickens escaped
From farmyard
congretions,
Crossed the Appalachians,
And turned to
amber trumpets
On the ramparts
of our Hoosiers' nest and citadel,
Millennial heralds
Of the foggy mazy
forest.
Pigs brokw loose,
scrambled west,
Scorned their
loathsome stations,
Crossed the Appalacians,
Turned to roaming,
foaming wild boars
Of the forest.
The smallest,
blindest puppies toddled west
While their eyes
were coming open,
And, with misty
observations,
Crossed the Appalacians,
Barked, barked,
barked
At the glow-worms
and the marsh lights and the lightning-bugs,
And turned to
ravering wolves
Of the forest.
Crazy parrots
and canaries flew west
Drunk on May-time
revelations,
Crossed the Appalachians,
And turned to
delirious flower-dressed fairies
Of the lazy forest.
Haughtiest swans
and peacocks swept west,
And, despite soft
derivations,
Crossed the Appalachians.
And turned to
blazing warrior souls
Of the forest,
Singing the ways
Of the Ancient
of Days.
And the "Old Continentals
In their ragged
regimentals,"
With bard's imaginations,
Crossed the Appalacians.
And
A boy
Blew west,
And with prayers
and incantations,
And with "Yankee
Doodle Dandy,"
Crossed the Appalacians,
And was "young
John Chapman,"
Then
"Johnny Appleseed,
Johnny Appleseed,"
Chief of the fastness,
dappled and vast,
In a pack on his
back,
In a deer-hide
sack,
The beautiful
orchards of the past,
The ghosts of
all the forests and the groves-
In that pack on
his back,
In that talisman
sack,
To-morrow's peaches,
pears and cheeries,
To-morrow's grapes
and red respberries,
Seeds and tree-souls,
precious things,
Feathered with
microscopic wings,
All the outdoors
the child heart knows,
And the apple,
green, red, and white,
Sun of his day
and his night-
The apple allied
to the thorn,
Child of the rose.
Porches untrod
of forest houses
All before him,
all day long,
"Yankee Doodle"
his marching song;
And the evening
breeze
Joined his psalms
of praise
As he sang the
ways
Of the Anchient
of Days.
Leaving behind
august Virginia,
Proud Massachusetts,
and proud Maine.
Planting the trees
that would march and train
On, in his name
of the great Pacific,
Like Birnam wood
to Dunsinance,
Johnny Appleseed
swept on,
Every shackle
gone,
Loving every sloshy
brake,
Loving every skunk
and snake,
Loving every leathery
weed,
Johnny Appleseed,
Johnny Appleseed,
Master and ruler
of the unicorn-ramping forest,
The tiger-mewing
forest,
The rooster-trumpeting,
boar-foaming, wolf-ravening forest,
The spirit-haunted,
fairy-enchanted forest,
Stupendous and
endless,
Searching it perilous
ways
In the name of
the Ancient of Days.