Vintage Colorado Poetry Poem of the Week February 21, 2005

President Harding. Library of Congress.

Presidents' Day honors not only George Washington and Abraham Lincoln but all U.S. presidents, from the great, to the adequate, to the mediocre. Two and a half years into his presidency, Warren G. Harding died in San Francisco.    Hundreds of Coloradans were in Cheyenne, Wyoming, to see President Harding's funeral train.  Later that day, Sunday, August 5, 1923, crossing Nebraska, the train dipped into the northeastern corner of Colorado, passing through Julesburg. Countless poems were written honoring the late president.  Nellie Burget Miller was Poet Laureate of Colorado.

Passing By From wind-swept mesas of the West, Across the prairies set thick with corn, A silent traveler is borne Toward home---and rest. But why do men gather along the way, Forsaking the fields with their ripened grain, To catch a glimpse of this speeding train? Because the still form lying there Is but the symbol, somehow, of the thing That each man dimly feels to be his own, The latent greatness unexpressed; Because each woman with a babe against her breast Weeps while she whispers, "Such as he, God grant my little son may sometime be!" From sunlit steeps of the Golden West, Through weeping prairies thick with corn, A silent traveler is borne; Hammer and forge all quiet lie, The reaper is still--- And nobody wonders why--- For the Soul of America passes by.                         --Nellie Burget Miller                                                    Reprinted from Anthology of Newspaper Verse for 1923. Edited by Franklyn Pierre Davis. Enid, Oklahoma, Frank P. Davis, Publisher, MCMXXIV. Copyright 1924 by Frank P. Davis. Reproduction by Vintage Colorado Poetry, non-profit literary archive, for scholarly purpose: 1998 Copyright Term Extension Act [last 20 year rule].

Harding's funeral train. Library of Congress.

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