“The next on our program is a quartet by members of the choir, ‘Sunset Land,’ composed by David Willis for this occasion.”
Four young people stepped out of the crowd to make their way to the head of the hall. The organist struck up a pleasing, though not very classic air, and they sang with spirit and harmony this song:
When our craggy hillsides freshen in the springtime,
When the canyons call for all that love to roam,
When the med’ larks trill their love songs o’er the sage plains,
Then my heart turns to my rugged mountain home.
Refrain
’Tis the West, the craggy West, that calls, that calls me;
’Tis the sage and sego-lily land I love,
With its amber skies, its crystal streams, its mountains,
Where among the canyon wilds we rove, we rove.
Not your grassy, gentle Eastern hills can lure me,
Nor your sunny, Southern skies tempt ’way my heart,
Nor the waving green of sky-to-sky prairies,
Make me long from rugged Western scenes to part.
(Refrain)
Let me live fore’er among the mighty mountains,
Let me feel their splendid strength within my soul,
Let me wander ’neath their groves of whispering aspens,
Let me dream at last where mountain streamlets roll.
(Refrain)
The crowd applauded noisily till the quartet sang again the refrain, with the audience joining in heartily, if not always harmoniously:
’Tis the West, the craggy West, that calls, that calls me;
’Tis the sage and sego-lily land I love,
With its amber skies, its crystal streams, its mountains,
Where among the canyon wilds we rove, we rove.
“We’ll now have a few words from one of our Pioneers, Brother Stephens,” announced the manager.