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lirik lagu robert penn warren - dragon country

this poem is called “dragon country: to jacob boehme.” it’s based on a line i encountered many years ago in lowell’s translation of boehme. the poem is in quatrains, rhyming abab, roughly iambic pentameter

this is the dragon’s country, and these his own streams
the slime on the railroad rails is where he has crossed the track
on a frosty morning, that field mist is where his great t~rd steams
and there are those who have gone forth and not come back
i was only a boy whеn jack simms reported the first dеpradation
what something had done to his hog pen. they called him a god~d~mn liar
then said it must be a bear, after some had viewed the location
with fence rails, like matchwood, splintered, and earth a bl~~dy mire
but no bear had been seen in the county in fifty years, they knew
it was something to say, merely that, for people compelled to explain
what, standing in natural daylight, they couldn’t believe to be true;
and saying the words, one felt in the chest a constrictive pain
at least, some admitted this later, when things had got to the worst—
when, for instance, they found in the woods the wagon turned on its side
mules torn from trace chains, and you saw how the harness had burst
spectators averted the face from the spot where the teamster had died
but that was long back, in my youth, just the first of case after case
the great hunts fizzled. you followed the track of disrepair
ruined fence, blood~smear, brush broken, but came in the tend to a place
with weed unbent and leaf calm—and nothing, nothing, was there
so what, in god’s name, could men think when they couldn’t bring to bay
that belly~dragging earth~evil, but found that it took to air?
thirty~thirty or buckshot might fail, but then at least you could say
you had faced it—assuming, of course, that you had survived the affair
we were promised troops, the guard, but the governor’s skin got thin
when up in new york the papers called him saint george of kentucky
yes, even the louisville reporters who came to todd county would grin
reporters, though rarely, still come. no one talks. they think it unlucky
if a man disappears—well, the fact is something to hide
the family says, gone to akron, or up to ford, in detroit
when we found jebb johnson’s boot, with the leg, what was left, inside
his mother said, no, it’s not his. so we took it out to destroy it
land values are falling, no longer do lovers in moonlight go
the rabbit, thoughtless of air gun, in the nearest pasture cavorts
now certain fields go untended, the local birth rate goes low
the coon dips his little black paw in the riffle where he nightly resorts
yes, other sections have problems somewhat different from ours
their crops may fail, bank rates rise, loans at rumor of war be called
but we feel removed from the maneuvers of russia, or other great powers
and from much ordinary hope we are now disenthralled
the catholics have sent in a mission, baptists report new attendance
but all that’s off the point! we are human, and the human heart
demands language for reality that has not the slightest dependence
on desire, or need—and in church fools pray only that the beast depart
but if the beast were withdrawn now, life might dwindle again
to the ennui, the pleasure, and the night sweat, known in the time before
necessity of truth had trodden the land, and our hearts, to pain
and left, in darkness, the fearful glimmer of joy, like a spoor

- lirik lagu robert penn warren

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