Brown o' San Juan,
Stranger, I'm Brown.
Come up this mornin' from 'Frisco—
Be'n a-saltin' my specie-stacks down.
Be'n a-knockin' around,
Fer a man from San Juan,
Putty consid'able frequent—
Jes' catch onter that streak o' the dawn!
Right thar lies my home—
Right thar in the red—
I could slop over, stranger, in po'try—
Would spread out old Shakspoke cold dead.

Stranger, you freeze to this: there ain't no kinder gin-palace,
Nor no variety-show lays over a man's own rancho.
Maybe it hain't no style, but the Queen in the Tower o' London,
Ain't got naathin' I'd swop for that house over thar on the hill-side.
Thar is my ole gal, 'n' the kids, 'n' the rest o' my live-stock;
Thar my Remington hangs, and thar there's a griddle-cake br'ilin'—
For the two of us, pard—and thar, I allow, the heavens
Smile more friendly-like than on any other locality.
Stranger, nowhere else I don't take no satisfaction.
Gimme my ranch, 'n' them friendly old Shanghai chickens—
I brung the original pair f'm the States in eighteen-'n'-fifty—
Gimme me them and the feelin' of solid domestic comfort.
Yer parding, young man—
But this landscape a kind
Er flickers—I 'low 'twuz the po'try—
I thought that my eyes hed gone blind.
Take that pop from my belt!
Hi, thar!—gimme yer han'—
Or I'll kill myself—Lizzie—she's left me—
Gone off with a purtier man!
Thar, I'll quit—the ole gal
An' the kids—run away!
I be derned! Howsomever, come in, pard—
The griddle-cake's thar, anyway.

IV

(As Austin Dobson might have translated it from Horace, if it had ever occurred to Horace to write it.)

RONDEAU

At home alone, O Nomades,
Although Mæcenas' marble frieze

Stand not between you and the sky
Nor Persian luxury supply
Its rosy surfeit, find ye ease.
Tempt not the far Ægean breeze;
With home-made wine and books that please,
To duns and bores the door deny,
At home, alone.
Strange joys may lure. Your deities
Smile here alone. Oh, give me these:
Low eaves, where birds familiar fly,
And peace of mind, and, fluttering by,
My Lydia's graceful draperies,
At home, alone.

V

(As it might have been constructed in 1744, Oliver Goldsmith, at 19, writing the first stanza, and Alexander Pope, at 52, the second.)

Home! at the word, what blissful visions rise,
Lift us from earth, and draw us toward the skies;
'Mid mirag'd towers, or meretricious joys,
Although we roam, one thought the mind employs:
Or lowly hut, good friend, or loftiest dome,
Earth knows no spot so holy as our Home.
There, where affection warms the father's breast,
There is the spot of heav'n most surely blest.
Howe'er we search, though wandering with the wind
Through frigid Zembla, or the heats of Ind,
Not elsewhere may we seek, nor elsewhere know,
The light of heaven upon our dark below.
When from our dearest hope and haven reft,
Delight nor dazzles, nor is luxury left,
We long, obedient to our nature's law,
To see again our hovel thatched with straw:

See birds that know our avenaceous store
Stoop to our hand, and thence repleted soar:
But, of all hopes the wanderer's soul that share,
His pristine peace of mind's his final prayer.

VI

(As Walt Whitman might have written all around it.)