Oh, Give Me a Home Where the Buffalo Roam
Oh, Give Me a Home Where the Buffalo Roam
Original Text
Kansas Statutes, Chapter 73, Article 1, Section 01 (June 30, 1947), where it is legislated as the state song of Kansas.
2Where the deer and the antelope play,
3Where seldom is heard a discouraging word
4And the sky is not clouded all day.
5 CHORUS
6A home, a home where the deer and the antelope play,
7Where seldom is heard a discouraging word
8And the sky is not clouded all day.
10Where life streams with buoyancy flow,
12Any poisonous herbage doth grow.
13Oh, give me the land where the bright diamond sand
14Throws its light from the glittering stream
15Where glideth along the graceful white swan,
16Like a maid in a heavenly dream.
17I love the wild flowers in this bright land of ours;
19The bluffs and white rocks and antelope flocks
20That graze on the hillsides so green.
21How often at night, when the heavens are bright
22With the light of the glittering stars,
23Have I stood here amazed and asked as I gazed
24If their glory exceeds this of ours.
25The air is so pure, the breezes so free,
26The zephyrs so balmy and light,
27I would not exchange my home here to range
28Forever in azure so bright.
Notes
1] The modern title is "Home on the Range." Back to Line
9] "The South Fork Solomon River rises in eastern Sherman County ... becomes a permanently flowing stream near Tasco in what is now Sheridan County and flows east a total of 208 miles before merging with the North Fork Solomon River, which forms in Thomas County and after 218 miles reaches the junction with the South Fork. The two rivers combine to form the Solomon River, which flows east and then southeast for approximately 70 miles before its final confluence with the Smoky Hill River in Saline County, Kansas" (Weaving the Common Threads of the Solomon Valley Fabric, cited by http://skyways.lib.ks.us/orgs/svha/about_valley.htm). Back to Line
11] Large two-forked creek known for its beaver dams and proceeding from Atwood to empty into the Republican river at Orleans, Nebraska. Back to Line
18] curley: possibly curlew. Back to Line
Publication Notes
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
2011
Rhyme
Form