Mornin' on the Desert"

                       

                    Mornin' on the desert, and the wind is blowin' free,

               And it's ours, jest for the breathin', so let's fill up, you and me.

                      No more stuffy cities, where you have to pay to breathe,

                Where the helpless human creatures move and throng and

                                          strive and seethe.

                       

                         Mornin' on the desert, and the air is like a wine.

                And it seems like all creation has been made for me and mine.

                   No housetop to stop my vision, save a nighbor's miles away,

                       And the little dobe shanty that belongs to me and May.

                 Lonesome? Not a minute! Why, I've got these mountains here,

                 That was put there jest to please me, with their blush and frown

            an' cheer. They're waitin' when the summer sun gets too sizzlin'hot,

                        An' we jest go campin' in 'em with a pan an' coffee pot,

                     Mornin' on the desert--I can smell the sagebrush smoke,

               I hate to see it burnin', but the land must sure be broke.

                       Aint it jest a pity what whereever man may live

                 He tears up much that's beautiful that the good God has to give?

                    Sagebrush aint so petty? Well, all eyes don't see the same.

                       Have you ever saw the moonlight turn it to a silvery flame

                 An' that greasewood thicket yonder--well, it smells jest awful sweet.

              When the night-wind has been shakin' it--for its smell is hard to beat.

                   Lonesome? Well, I guess not! I've been lonesome in a town,

                But I sure do love the desert, with it's stretches wide and brown.

                   All day through the sagebrush here the wind is blowin free,

                    An' its ours jest for the breathin', so let's fill up, you and me.

                                                                                  Author unknown.

This was taken from the door of a miner's cabin in

Golden Arrow,a Nye county mining camp, early 1900s.

              

               Info from: Central Nevada Historical Society Publication, Central   Nevada's  Glorious Past--Volume 3, No. 2, 30 and

                             Nevada Historical Society Publications, Volume I