Classic Poem

I tell yeh whut! The chankin'
Which the tired horses makes
When you've slipped the harness off'm,
An' shoved the hay in flakes
From the hay-mow overhead,
Is jest about the equal of any pi-anay;
They's nothin' soun's s' cumftabul
As horsus chawin' hay.

I love t' hear 'em chankin',
Jest a-grindin' slow and low,
With their snoots a-rootin' clover
Deep as their ol' heads 'll go.
It's kind o' sort o' restin'
To a feller's bones, I say.
It soun's s' mighty cumftabul—
The horsus chawin' hay.

Gra-onk, gra-onk, gra-onk!
In a stiddy kind o' tone,
Not a tail a-waggin' to 'um,
N'r another sound 'r groan—
Fer the flies is gone a-snoozin'.
Then I loaf around an' watch 'em
In a sleepy kind o' way,
F'r they soun' so mighty cumftabul
As they rewt and chaw their hay.

An' it sets me thinkin' sober
Of the days of '53,
When we pioneered the prairies—
M' wife an' dad an' me,
In a dummed ol' prairie-schooner,
In a rough-an'-tumble way,
Sleepin' out at nights, to music
Of the horsus chawin' hay.

Or I'm thinkin' of my comrades
In the fall of '63,
When I rode with ol' Kilpatrick
Through an' through ol' Tennessee.
I'm a-layin' in m' blanket
With my head agin a stone,
Gazin' upwards toward the North Star—
Billy Sykes and Davy Sloan
A-snorin' in a buck-saw kind o' way,
An' me a-layin', listenin'
To the horsus chawin' hay.

It strikes me turrible cur'ous
That a little noise like that,
Can float a feller backwards
Like the droppin' of a hat;
An' start his throat a-achin',
Make his eyes wink that a-way—
They ain't no sound that gits me
Like horsus chawin' hay!