On Kentucky

Due to my friendship with several Kentuckians, the first I've known, over the last couple of years, I can't help but have an admiration for the state. I've really never seen such an intense patriotism for any other state (with the exception of Oklahoma). One of my Kentucky friends is planning to put this poem to music and play it on his mandolin.

"In Kentucky" (1902) by James Mulligan

The moonlight falls the softest
In Kentucky;
The summer's days come oft'est
In Kentucky;
Friendship is the strongest,
Love's fires glow the longest;
Yet, a wrong is always wrongest
In Kentucky.

The sunshine's ever brightest
In Kentucky;
The breezes whisper lightest
In Kentucky;
Plain girls are the fewest,
Maidens' eyes the bluest,
Their little hearts are truest
In Kentucky.

Life's burdens bear the lightest
In Kentucky;
The home fires burn the brightest
In Kentucky;
While players are the keenest,
Cards come out the meanest,
The pocket empties cleanest
In Kentucky.

Orators are the grandest
In Kentucky;
Officials are the blandest
In Kentucky;
Boys are all the fliest,
Danger ever nighest,
Taxes are the highest
In Kentucky.

The bluegrass waves the bluest
In Kentucky;
Yet bluebloods are the fewest (?)
In Kentucky;
Moonshine is the clearest,
By no means the dearest,
And yet, it acts the queerest,
In Kentucky.

The dove's notes are the saddest
In Kentucky;
The streams dance on the gladdest
In Kentucky;
Hip pockets are the thickest,
Pistol hands the slickest,
The cylinder turns quickest
In Kentucky.

Song birds are the sweetest
In Kentucky;
The thoroughbreds the fleetest
In Kentucky;
Mountains tower proudest,
Thunder peals the loudest,
The landscape is the grandest - and
Politics - the damnedest
In Kentucky.

Notes: I love the use of "fly" as a positive descriptor; it reminds me of "She's so fly." The third stanza is about gambling (which I didn't pick up at first). Their "little hearts are truest"--I can tell you right now, the feminists would love this line.

So from the first stanza we see the point of the poem--the extremes that Kentucky holds. The good things there are best and the bad things there are worst. It is interesting that the bad extremes would be praised by the writer of the poem, but maybe it is precisely this inclusion of irony in localism or love for one's place that makes it palatable and even endearing. Or perhaps JBL would tell us that it is because the good is so pure in Kentucky that any deviation from it sticks out very strongly.