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The Balloon and the Bronco
Ode to the parachute jumper
I can sit on a bronco's hurricane deck
When he kicks as high as the moon,
But darn my skin if you'll get me in
To an untamed Yankee balloon.
That goes up like a Winchester rifle shot
Up towards Heaven's back garden plot.
I have run some risks on the wild frontier,
When the Reds war about the land,
But to jump in the air from way up thar
Would exhaust my supply of sand:
You bet I'd hang on to that old balloon
If she bumped her side against the moon.
Suppose that overgrown parasol
Should happen to make a kick
An' fail to do as he wanted it to
He'd drop to the earth too quick,
And would sink so deep that his friends, no doubt,
Would go to China to dig him out.
I'm kinder glad that the old balloon
Refused to straddle the cloud
When he cut her way he meant to stay,
Tho' he landed to fill a shroud
And soon or late, you'll hear me toot,
He'll break his neck from that parachute.
And if I'm around when the corpse comes back,
And is laid in the last low bed,
And the soft winds sigh a sweet lulaby
O'er the poor balloonist's head,
I hardly think I'll be amiss
To write him an epitaph just like this:
"Here lies the body of one who flew,
Like a meteor up towards heaven's blue,
And then with a reckless sort of grace
Flew just as fast toward the other place.
Sometimes toward Heaven, sometimes toward – well!
He changed so often it's hard to tell
Whether upon his final shoot
He works a balloon or parachute."
-- Captain Jack Crawford, 1887
