CATTLE
by Berta Hart Nance (1883-1958)
Other states were carved or born,
Texas grew from hide and horn.
Other states are long and wide,
Texas is a shaggy hide.
Dripping blood and crumpled hair;
Some fat giant flung it there,
Laid the head where valleys drain,
Stretched its rump along the plain.
Other soil is full of stones,
Texans plow up cattle-bones.
Herds are buried on the trail,
Underneath the powdered shale;
Herds that stiffened like the snow,
Where the icy northers go.
Other states have built their halls,
Humming tunes along the walls,
Texans watched the mortar stirred
While they kept the lowing herd.
Stamped on Texan wall and roof
Gleams the sharp and crescent hoof.
High above the hum and stir
Jingle bridle-rein and spur.
Other states were carved or born,
Texas grew from hide and horn.
A native of Albany, Texas Berta Hart Nance was primarily known for her poetry about the frontier heritage of Texas, though she also was the author of several short stories. She wrote her first poem at the age of thirteen and the Albany News was the first to publish her work. Nance continued to write as an adult and her work was published in numerous newspapers, magazines, and eventually in book volumes.
In 1931 Nance won The Texan Prize for her poem “Cattle”, which is perhaps her most widely known piece. “Cattle” has been used for many years as the introduction at the beginning of each performance of the Fort Griffin Fandangle every summer in her hometown of Albany. Fandangle creator Robert E. Nail Jr. said of the poem: “A lyric called ‘Cattle’, it seems to come right out of ranch land, to speak eloquently and truly what is in and behind West Texans…[It] matches the happy inspriation and phraseology of the work Fandanglers, on both sides of the footlights, cherish so highly.”
Molly Sauder, Archivist and Librarian
