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Grantland Rice (1880-1954)
THE VANISHED COUNTRY
Back in the Vanished Country
There's a cabin in the lane,
Across the yellow sunshine
And the silver of the rain;
A cabin, summer-shaded,
Where the maples whispered low
Dream stories of the southwind
That a fellow used to know;
And it's queer that, turning gray,
Still a fellow looks away
To a dream he knows has vanished
Down the Path of Yesterday.
Back in the Vanished Country
There's an old-time swinging gate
Through the early dusk of summer
Where a girl had come to wait;
And her hair was like the sundrift
From the heart of summer skies
While the blue of God's wide heaven
Crowned the splendor of her eyes;
And it's queer that turning gray,
Still a fellow looks away
To a dream he knows has vanished
Down the Path of Yesterday.
Back in the Vanished Country
There's a dream that used to be,
Of Fame within the City
And a name beyond the sea;
A dream of laurel wreathings
That came singing through the night
The story of the glory
Of the victor in the fight;
And it's queer that, worn and gray,
Still a fellow looks away
To a dream he knows has vanished
Down the Path of Yesterday.
A poet and author, Grantland Rice is best remembered as the great American sportswriter.
He is the one who christened Notre Dame's 1924 backfield as the "The Four Horsemen",
Red Grange as "The Galloping Ghost", and gave us the quote that it's "... not that you won or lost- but how you played the game."
The Vanished Country appears in the Anthology of Magazine Verse for 1915 with the sub-title:
(Re-entered at the Request of the Gentleman from Texas). It is listed as having appeared in the March 10, 1915 issue of the New York Tribune.
Braithwaite, William Stanley, ed. Anthology of Magazine Verse for 1915 And Year Book of American Poetry. New York: Gomme & Marshall 1915.
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