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MOTHER WEST, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: There is a mother, legend runs
Last Line: Come home to mother west.
Subject(s): Homecoming; West (u.s.); Southwest; Pacific States


THERE is a mother, legend runs,
Of mothers quite the best,
Who boasts ten million sturdy sons
'Twixt plain and mountain crest;
She gives of wealth in goodly store,
She gives abounding health — and, more,
She opens wide Contentment's door —
Her name is Mother West.

Beneath the blazing stars, low-swung,
Where eagles make their nest,
Her hardy boys to crags have clung
And faced death with a jest;
And on the cattle-dotted plain,
Where ranch lights now gleam through the rain,
Right cheerily her sons have lain
And died for Mother West.

For she a mystic spell has laid
Upon the human breast;
To break her bonds men have essayed,
But well they stand the test;
For every pulsing heart she claims,
And every mind, with all its aims,
Once yielding to her sunset flames
Belongs to Mother West.

O thou, whose bounties never fail,
We are thy children blest;
To foreign shores we may set sail,
Our pilot strange unrest;
But still thy nestlings turn to thee —
Thy hills, thy plains, thy mystery —
And, at the last, from oversea
Come home to Mother West.





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