"You're a painful sort o' sight, crackin' up Broadway.
Kimball, Brule County, was an ace-high flush to beat
An' I'd backed her to the limit fer a winner in the play.
"But the beauty-spot on Kimball an' the boys that made her hum
Was the fact that rye an' roulette didn't petrify their souls;
Simply tip 'em to the theory that yer luck was on the bum
An' they'd cut the game instanter an' deliver up their rolls.
"An' if I'd a wife an' children an' was billed fer Canaan's Strand
I'd take a sight more pleasure in a-turnin' up my toes
If I left 'em to the mercies o' that old Dakota land
Than in your plug-hat city where the money-grubber grows."
Young an' slim an' pretty An' she turned his haid.
Far from the Spanish the school rooms teach.
All day long, from the dawn's first flush
When the mass is said in the morning hush
And the iron track which stretches forth,
From the grinding wheels of a through-bound train
Then, for a space, as the whistle screams,
From the mystical zone of the outer world.
While the land in its noontide slumber lay
Save a lizard, perhaps, by a cactus spear
To quench its thirst at the cooling spring
But the lilt of a song on his smiling lips,
And love was the theme of his murmured song.
Scanning its length with a practiced eye,
To a group of children who, gaping, stood
At the side of the track, too wonder-bound
Who, laughing, clutched at his corded neck
And the dark-eyed mother who, day by day,
And watched, as the trains steamed forth and back,
And then, as he turned, the cause was plain
A flame licked out from a box-car's side,
His cheek grew pale, but his lips still smiled
As he slipped from his shoulder the startled child,
Then he sprang to the street with a bound and gazed
Intent, at the spot where the fire blazed.
Enough, if its deadly strength found vent,
On the glassy rails where the drivers spun,
Till, biting the steel with a spurt of fire
And, gathering speed on the curveless road,
It rolled from the town and left it whole.
Like death torn loose from a stricken soul.
But looking backward with stern-set face,
It would shatter the village wall from wall.
Fanned by its flight through the rushing wind,
On the cars that rocked in its lurid trail.
Strained to the race, while the rails it trod