{
 "id": "james-mcintyre/riding-an-avalanche",
 "title": "Riding an Avalanche",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "James McIntyre",
 "poet_slug": "james-mcintyre",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Poems of James McIntyre",
 "book_slug": "poems-of-james-mcintyre",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 61,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1889,
  "venue": "Poems of James McIntyre (1889)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/cihm_11791"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/james-mcintyre_poetry",
  "file": "poetry.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://archive.org/details/cihm_09542",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/36068",
   "https://archive.org/details/cihm_11791"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-20"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 60,
  "n_stanzas": 15,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 43,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "With our Canadian snow shoes,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "O’er snow you walk where’er you choose,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But on long shoes Norwegian",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They are like narrow toboggan.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And all your movements you control",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By the aid of a stout long pole,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With it you balance or propel",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But we show now what once befell.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Two miners full of pluck and game,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Wished to locate a mining claim,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On a high steep mountain crest",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In Colorado of the West.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Though snow was deep they would attempt",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Their good mine for to pre-empt,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So up the mountain they do climb,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Covered o’er with snow and rime.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Norwegian shoes slide over the snow,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "High and higher still they go,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "One was two hundred yards ahead,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Till snow gives way where he doth tread.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Which quickly starts an avalanche,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He seizes on a stout tree branch,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But all in vain he rushes fast,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "His snow shoes in the avalanche.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "His friend on shoes Norwegian,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Like lightning down the hill he ran,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or rather o’er the ice did glide",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Down the long steep and glassy slide.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And after him the Avalanche,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Tearing up trees both root and branch,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The man on Avalanche doth yell",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To his friend you are doing well.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "With your shoes Norwegian,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Swifter than a toboggan,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Go on, go on, you’ll win the race,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For we are slack’ning in our pace.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "But, alas! poor runner feels",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The Avalanche doth touch his heels,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Shall he be buried in the mass,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or will the vast pile o’er him pass.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "He stops quite sudden ’neath a rock,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It passed o’er him with mighty shock,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Though it did cause him great alarm,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yet still he was all safe from harm.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The Avalanche yet downward slides,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And his friend on it he rides,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Until it safely him doth launch",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On outer edge of his own ranch.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "After three miles down the gulch,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They both might have been crushed to mulch,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The one he seemed to run a race,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "While one on Avalanche did chase.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "But it was not for bravado,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "One rode, one run in Colorado,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For it was desperate the strife",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Each had for to secure his life.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "This tale of shoes Norwegian",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is not for the collegian,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But for such youths as do take pride",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In reading of a wondrous slide.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}