The Maverick Poem by Willard Wattles

There is wonder in the wander-lust that sets the
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, the fairest land
of all.