The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #108898   Message #2950388
Posted By: Artful Codger
23-Jul-10 - 12:29 AM
Thread Name: ADD: Poems and Songs of Charles Badger Clark
Subject: RE: ADD: Poems and Songs of Charles Badger Clark
One should not presume Clark wrote "The Ballad of Billy Leamont" on the basis of its appearing in this thread. Lomax was exercising artistic license when he used that fragment as an introduction to Clark's poem "From Town" (in Lomax, "Ridin' Up the Rocky Trail from Town"). The poem was originally titled "The Trail from Town" (or so it was named in The Pacific Monthly, Sept. 1907).

The short, untitled poem which Jim Dixon posted above, starting "Though a restless man may wander," appears to be a variant of "Exiled Black Hiller"; this poem may be found in Scott's compilation Cowboy Poetry: [etc.], which has been cited and linked in previous posts. Scott commented:
Badger was already a published poet when his hometown newspaper [the Deadwood Pioneer Times] printed this poem. Twenty years after his death it was republished with a few changes, as the "Exile" in Boots and Bylines.