From Rude Rural Rhymes by Bob Adams, New York: The Macmillan Company; 1925; pp. 198-199.
MOTHER EARTH
I’d rather wander down the byways
Than breathe the dust along the highways.
I’ll take my time and ambulate
The rough dirt roads that autos hate.
The fewer cars go honking by,
The better for such gents as I,
Who’d rather tread on rutty drives
Which offer safety for our lives,
Than good macadam, rolled and pressed,
Where flivvers knock us galley west.
O I like folks and like to meet them,
I like to grin at them and greet them,
Yet sometimes feel in every bone
The call to walk a while alone,
Where fragrant wayside trees hang o’er me,
But no one hangs around to bore me.
You’ve heard the story of the Titan
Who had with Hercules a fight on.
Though fiercely Hercules would pound him,
Though oft he grabbed and shook and downed him.
He riz right up again, confound him;
For when he touched his Mother Earth
[1]
She poured new strength through height and girth.
So, as I walk in pleasant weather,
The soil and I draw close together.
The old elm dreaming by the meadow
Drops fellowship as well as shadow.
I am a part of all I see,
Dame Nature bares her heart to me,
Reveals alike her worst and best,
And, when I stop a while to rest,
Gives me a bit of earth to light on,
With windfall apples for to bite on,
Till I’m renewed like that old Titan.