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Vintage Colorado Poetry Poem of the Week November 3, 2003

James Barton Adams, a Denver Evening Post columnist at the turn of the 19th century and a popular versifier of Colorado virtue, was born in Ohio in 1843, fought in the Civil War, and died in Vancouver, Washington, in 1918.

Just Like Colorado

The preacher on his visit read a chapter from the Book,    Then offered up a prayer to the Lord. And, with the rancher's family for auditors, he took    A theme for exhortation from the Word. He talked about the beauties of the blessed Promised Land,    The living streams and the never-dying flowers, The trees of deathless beauty waving cheer on every hand,    The song birds singing music in the bowers. He dwelt upon the virtues of the residents up there;    They were all men and women fair to see, The ever-golden sunshine, the pure and balmy air,    The cities in their lordly majesty. The rancher's little daughter sat and listened open-eyed,    Her face reflecting reverence and awe. And when the preacher finished she in childish rapture cried:    "It's just like Colorado, ain't it, ma?"                                          --James Barton Adams Reprinted from Breezy Western Verse, Denver, 1899.