The Golden West Poem by Robert Kirkland Kernighan

The star of empire takes its way

Towards the Golden West ;
And millions follow in its wake

The bravest and the best !

They leave the shores that fed them not,
Nor clothed their children young ;

They come to plant their myriad tents,
The prairie flowers among.

They turn their sw r ords to ploughshares, and
Their spears to pruning hooks ;

They come to lead their flocks and herds
Beside our running brooks.

They come to till our waiting soil,

And break the stubborn sod ;
They come to make their gardens in

This country of our God.

They 'll build their mighty cities by

The wide and crystal lakes ;
Nor cease till 'gainst the Rockies high

The tide of freedom breaks.

And he who starved in wretchedness

Beyond the distant sea,
Will, in our land of bounteousness,

A lord of nature be.