Oh the long horns from Texas, The jay hawks from Kansas, The plop-eyed bungaroo and giant giassicus, The varmint, chipmunk, bugaboo, The horned-toad, prairie-dog and ballyhoo, From all the new-born states arow, Bidding the eagles of the west fly on, Bidding the eagles of the west fly on. The fawn, prodactyl and thing-a-ma-jig, The rakaboor, the hellangone, The whangdoodle, batfowl and pig, The coyote, wild-cat and grizzly in a glow, In a miracle of health and speed, the whole breed abreast, They leaped the Mississippi, blue border of the West, From the Gulf to Canada, two thousand miles long:-- Against the towns of Tubal Cain, Ah,--sharp was their song. Against the ways of Tubal Cain, too cunning for the young, The long-horn calf, the buffalo and wampus gave tongue. These creatures were defending things Mark Hanna never dreamed: The moods of airy childhood that in desert dews gleamed, The gossamers and whimsies, The monkeyshines and didoes Rank and strange Of the canyons and the range, The ultimate fantastics Of the far western slope, And of prairie schooner children Born beneath the stars, Beneath falling snows, Of the babies born at midnight In the sod huts of lost hope, With no physician there, Except a Kansas prayer, With the Indian raid a howling through the air. And all these in their helpless days By the dour East oppressed, Mean paternalism Making their mistakes for them, Crucifying half the West, Till the whole Atlantic coast Seemed a giant spiders’ nest. And these children and their sons At last rode through the cactus, A cliff of mighty cowboys On the lope, With gun and rope. And all the way to frightened Maine the old East heard them call, And saw our Bryan by a mile lead the wall Of men and whirling flowers and beasts, The bard and the prophet of them all. Prairie avenger, mountain lion, Bryan, Bryan, Bryan, Bryan, Gigantic troubadour, speaking like a siege gun, Smashing Plymouth Rock with his boulders from the West, And just a hundred miles behind, tornadoes piled across the sky, Blotting out sun and moon, A sign on high. Headlong, dazed and blinking in the weird green light, The scalawags made moan, Afraid to fight. II When Bryan came to Springfield, and Altgeld gave him greeting, Rochester was deserted, Divernon was deserted, Mechanicsburg, Riverton, Chickenbristle, Cotton Hill, Empty: for all Sangamon drove to the meeting-- In silver-decked racing cart, Buggy, buckboard, carryall, Carriage, phaeton, whatever would haul, And silver-decked farm-wagons gritted, banged and rolled, With the new tale of Bryan by the iron tires told.