It is not mine the world to roam; when I was born the Fates decreed
that I should always stay at home, and deal in hay and bran and feed.
For mighty deeds I have no chance while I am rustling in my store; and
yet my life has its romance, and I've adventures by the score.
For evening comes, and then, serene, to my abode I take my way, and
grab this good old magazine, and leave the world of bran and hay.
Through Arctic wildernesses cold, I follow the explorers' train, or
seeking go for pirate's gold along the storied Spanish Main. Oft, by
the miner's struggling lamp, I count the nuggets I have won; or in the
cowboys' wind-swept camp indulge in wild athletic fun. The big round
world is all for me, brought to me by the sprightly tale; o'er every
strange and distant sea my phantom ship has learned to sail, I travel
in all neighborhoods where daring man has left his tracks; I am the
hunter in the woods, I am the woodman with his ax. I am the grim,
effective sleuth who goes forth in a rare disguise, and quickly drags
the shining truth from out a mountain range of lies. I am the watcher
of the roads, the highwayman of wold and moor, relieving rich men of
their loads, to give a rakeoff to the poor. I am the hero of the
crowds, as, on my trusty aeroplane, I cleave a pathway through the
clouds, to Milky Way and Charles's Wain. I am the pitcher known to
fame; I pitch as though I worked by Steam, and in the last and crucial
game I win the pennant for my team. I am the white man's final hope,
on whom his aspirations hinge, and, notwithstanding all the dope, I
knock the daylights from the dinge.
I am the man of action when, with lamplight gloating o'er the scene, I
bask at leisure in my den, and read my fav'rite magazine. And so all
day I stay at home attending to the treadmill grind; but when night
comes afar I roam, and leave the workday world behind.