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Poem: "Log Drive"


Now when the flood of April
Snorts by the gullied plain,
Pine logs are foaming stallions 
Unbroken to the rein.

Sol Brady's woodhicks gallop
Down Gauley to the mill,
They bow their legs and straddle
And set their hooks with skill.

They leap, a-swopping horses
To scare the folks on shore,
And sing a logger ballad
Above the water's roar.

Tonight in Brady's cookshack,
Baked beans and logger stew . . . 
And later, in the bunkhouse,
A keg of mountain dew.

So spur your calk heels, Bullies
And gallop through the foam. . . . 
Gee-haw your kant hook bridles
And guide your stallions home.
						


Source: Louise McNeill, Gauley Mountain (1939).