Poetry Archives

Bill’s home ag’in from Europe, where he featured with a show,
But he don’t talk none about it—his words jest seem to flow
On the subject of home-comin’, and this glorious Southwest land,
Which talk, to all us people, is some hard to onderstand.

The stage-driver was tellin’ when he hit the sagebrush flat
That’s south of Cactus Center, Bill jest wept behind his hat,
And he nearly went plum dotty, his joy was so intense,
At the prairie dogs a-scoldin’ behind each wire fence.

When the driver stopped at Arid, fer a meal and fer a rest,
Bill pinned a sprig of cactus like a flower on his vest;
He couldn’t eat fer lookin’ at that endless, dreary plain—
I guess it makes men homesick fer to cross the ragin’ main.

So we let Bill kinder babble ’bout these things we know so well,
And we’re all a-waitin’, patient, for the glories he will tell;
In a week or two he’ll see things like he hadn’t been away—
But the homin’ joy has got him on the locoed list to-day.