Ghost Towns

Now they're only ghost towns

swaying in the wind

Memories of bright and better days

When the cities slowly grew

from the wagons rolling through,

When the school bell woke and tolled

and the hurdy-gurdy rolled

From a canyon in Wyoming,

a gulch in Idaho,

Now they're only ghost towns

far from the broad highway.

Diamond dust and marble,

crystal chandeliers,

Purple curtained carriages are gone,

As the tar and paper shack

built beside the railroad track,

Just a temporary mode

'til he hit the mother lode,

Then he'd holler up the town

with his pockets hanging down,

Forty Rod and Redeye to greet the miner's dawn.

So fleet the work of mortals,

back to earth again,

Ancient thing will fade like a dream,

You and I will come and go,

share the joy and feel the woe,

Of too brief midsummer days

and too many winter ways,

And no matter how we try,

we can never find the why.

Never find the reason, never find the scheme.