The Maverick.feet to roaming, And love has met me on the road and sweetened all the gloaming; Still, hard it is to walk so far, the while my heart is homing For the West-land, the best land, the land that gave me birth, The wide and sunny prairie-land, the fairest land of earth, Oh, hills are kind and comforting, and spicy woods are clean, And there's familiar friendship in the homely dales between, But I have seen the sunflower in a dress of dusty green, The sunflower, the one flower, the flower that gypsies wear When they go singing down the years, with star- dust in their hair. Oh, every road in Kansas-land is walled about with gold, And overhead the August sun is like a lord of old A-riding down to Palestine, and staunch is he to hold The West way, the best way, the way that I would take If I could scale these sullen walls where all my lances break. The hills of Massachusetts are a-bud with early spring, But it's little that I reck or care for all their bur- geoning; For my heart is at the stirrup and I feel the pommel swing___ The West-land, the blessed land, I hear the homing call, The wide and sunny prairie-land, thc fairest land of all. __Willard Wattles. |
