Familiar Sounds

    Familiar Sounds.

 

 

I’ve traveled north and traveled south

     I’ve traveled east and west

In search of story and of song,

     Of merry quip and jest.

The north is cold and practical,

     The south is warm and bright,

The west is breezy, hale and rough,

     The east is most polite.

 

You get a story down in Maine,

     You think is new and pat;

You take it out to Frisco Bay

     Well guarded ’neath your hat;

You spin it at the Golden Gate

     With all the zest you know;

Some one will say: “my father told

     That fifty years ago.”

 

Palm Beach is noted for its yarns,

     In mellow anthem tone;

You drink them with the balmy air

     And call the joke your own.

You carry it to Montreal,

     Up where the north wind chills

And some one there will blandly say:

     “That’s older than the hills.”

 

And so it goes, from North to South,

     And so from east to west;

It is a risk to perpetrate

     The merry quip and jest.

One finds the story and the song

     No matter where he goes;

It is the same old skeleton,

     Attired in different clothes!

 

May 1, 1913