PRUNE CENTER is a hustling town. For liveliness it has renown. The leading boosters stand and crow, "Just watch our population grow!" All new arrivals have their charms; they're welcomed there with open arms. All sorts of cheap and worthless lads, the deadbeats from the other grads, the loafers who, for vagrant ways, have drawn ten dollars or ten days, who'll work the town for grub and coal—just so they swell the census roll, they're welcomed with a hip- hooray, and told to camp right down and stay. If I were owner of a town, and wished to give it high renown, I'd see that no one settled there, without a record clean and fair. I'd have a censor in each street, the new-arriving gents to meet, and he would warn the worthless skate to turn around and pull his freight. You don't invite the worthless dub to seek your home and eat your grub. Then why invite him to your town, and beg that he will settle down? | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...FOR SPRING, BY SANDRO BOTTICELLI by DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI THE TRANCE by LASCELLES ABERCROMBIE TO THE WINDS by BERNARD BARTON THE PILGRIM OF GLENCOE by THOMAS CAMPBELL PHI BETA KAPPA POEM; HARVARD, 1914 by BLISS CARMAN THE FIRST FISHERMAN by PATRICK REGINALD CHALMERS THE LAST PROOF; AN EPILOGUE TO ANY PROOF by HENRY AUSTIN DOBSON |