Sherry Chandler

James H. Mulligan

Okay, here’s Kentucky’s most famous poem, written by James H. Mulligan (1844-1915) in 1902. Mulligan was a Lexington lawyer who served as a state senator and U.S. Consul-General to the Kingdom of Samoa. He wrote several poems in what William S. Ward calls the “local color tradition,” but “In Kentucky” is the only one that is still quoted today. It has been read into the Congressional Record and parodied by most other states. Says Ward, in A Literary History of Kentucky, “…it has been estimated, well over a million souvenir postal cards have been sold with the verses printed on them.”

In Kentucky

The moonlight falls the softest
In Kentucky;
The summer days come oftest
In Kentucky;
Friendship is the strongest,
Love’s light glows the longest;
Yet, wrong is always wrongest
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.

The sun shines ever brightest
In Kentucky;
The breezes whisper lightest
In Kentucky;
Plain girls are the fewest,
Maiden’s eyes the bluest,
Their little hearts are truest
In Kentucky.

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

The song birds are the sweetest
In Kentucky;
The thoroughbreds are fleetest
In Kentucky;
Mountains tower proudest,
Thunders peal the loudest,
The landscape is the grandest-
And politics—the damnedest
In Kentucky.

— James H. Mulligan, from Kentucky Eloquence. Past and Present. Library of Orations, After-Dinner Speeches, Popular and Classic Lectures Addresses and Poetry, Bennett H. Young, editor (Louisville, Kentucky: Ben LaBree, 1907)

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