Kansas says, Come - A poem by Lincoln Phifer

Kansas Says Come.

Kansas Says Come.
She said it long ago through Rumor's tongue;
DeSoto heard and left the land of flowers
To seek the golden cities; but she sung
In siren tone to rob him of his powers.
In Mexico old Coronado heard,
And through the desert pressed by unknown.
traces,
To find the billowy bisons on the sward
And strange red peoples in the desert places,
When Kansas said, Come.

Kansas said, Come.
The Indians from the east fled to her arms;
The Puritan and Cavalier next came;
The world went mad at her seductive charms,
And through the south there ran a flood of
flame.
Again the lure of Kansas like a song
Ran through the world; and nations, white
wings wide,
Rushed to the west in a crusading throng,
Their campfires twinkling by the highway-
side,
When Kansas said, Come.

^__Lincoln Phifer.

The Dramas of Kansas
Lincoln Phifer
(Girard: Lincoln Phifer. 1915)
Page 157