The Edge Of Town Poem by Henry Herbert Knibbs

The scattering sage stands thin and tense
As though afraid of the barbed-wire fence;
A windmill purrs in the lazy breeze
And a mocker sings in the pepper trees,
And beneath their shadows, gold and blue,
Hangs the old red olla, rimmed with dew:
Where the valley quail in the twilight call,
As the sunset fades on the 'dobe wall,
Just where the foothill trail comes down,
I have made my home on the edge of town.

A few green acres fenced and neat,
By a road that will never become a street;
And once in a while, down the dusty way
A traveler comes at the end of the day;
A desert rat or some outland tramp,
Seeking a place of his evening camp;
The door of my 'dobe is four feet wide,
And there's always a bed and a meal, inside.

And many a one of the wights that roam,
Has stopped at my house and found a home:
And many a tale of these outland folk
Has furnished a tang to the evening smoke,
While the stars shone down on our dwelling-place,
And the moon peered in at a dusky face.

Singers, they, of the open land;
The timbered peak and the desert sand,
Peril and joy of the hardy quest,
Trail and pack of he unspoiled West:
Though crowded back to the lone, last range,
Their dream survives that will never change.

When the hill-stream roars from the far-off height,
And the rain on the patio dances white;
And the log in my winter fireplace gleams,
And my Airedale whimpers his hunting-dreams;
Should a boot-heel grate on the portal floor,
Should I hear a knock at the dripping door,
Then I know that Romance has again come down
From the high, far hills, to the edge of town.