Come Out

You city folks who toil all day

Where walls are dark and skies are gray,

Don’t spend your whole lives in the gloom

Of some dark, crowded city room.

Come out where fields are wide and fair

And breathe the soul-inspiring air.

Come out, I say, and here abide

In God’s own fruitful countryside.

Come out and buy a farm, and be

Forever from the city free.

Don’t be a bee within the hive

That buries human souls alive,

But imitate the birds that swing

Upon the apple trees and sing,

Sing with the gusts of a soul

That knows no burden or control.

The farm, the countryside awaits

Your coming to her vast estates;

There’s room enough, and land to spare,

Why will you dally longer there?

Come out and stretch your cramped-up bones

Amongst the tangled stumps and stones;

Come out and join the sturdy van,

Come out and be a red blood man!

Sept. 9, 1914