Higley, Brewster -- “My Western Home,” Smith County Pioneer (1873-11)

Dave — Sat, 06 Sep 2025 20:31:43 +0000

Oh give me a home where the buffalo roam,
Where the deer and the antelope play,
Where seldom is heard a discouraging word
And the skies are not cloudy all day.

Brewster Higley (1823-1911) American physician, poet
“My Western Home,” Smith County Pioneer (1873-11)
(Source)

Set to music by Daniel Kelley (1843-1905), a friend of Higley's. The song was published in 1910 by John Lomax in Cowboy Songs as an anonymous cowboy tune, and revised and retitled by David Guion for a Broadway show in 1930. It became widely popular when President Franklin Roosevelt said in 1933 that it was a favorite of his.

The oldest extant published version is in the Kirwin Chief, Vol. 3, No. 1 (1876-02-26). The lyrics for this verse are the same, except the final line, which reads "And the sky is not clouded all day."

In 1847, it was made the state song of Kansas by the legislature.

More information about this song see:

Dyson, Freeman -- The Scientist as Rebel, Part 1, ch. 1 “The Scientist as Rebel” (2006)

Dave — Mon, 27 Mar 2023 17:52:05 +0000

There is no such thing as a unique scientific vision, any more than there is a unique poetic vision. Science is a mosaic of partial and conflicting visions. But there is one common element in these visions. The common element is rebellion against the restrictions imposed by the locally prevailing culture, Western or Eastern as the case may be. It is no more Western than it is Arab or Indian or Japanese or Chinese. Arabs and Indians and Japanese and Chinese had a big share in the development of modern science. And two thousand years earlier, the beginnings of science were as much Babylonian and Egyptian as Greek. One of the central facts about science is that it pays no attention to East and West and North and South and black and yellow and white. It belongs to everybody who is willing to make the effort to learn it. And what is true of science is true of poetry. Poetry was not invented by Westerners. India has poetry older than Homer. Poetry runs as deep in Arab and Japanese culture as it does in Russian and English. Just because I quote poems in English, it does not follow that the vision of poetry has to be Western. Poetry and science are gifts given to all of humanity.

Freeman Dyson (1923-2020) English-American theoretical physicist, mathematician, futurist
The Scientist as Rebel, Part 1, ch. 1 “The Scientist as Rebel” (2006)
(Source)

Originally given as a lecture in Cambridge, England (1992-11). Published as "The Scientist as Rebel," in John Cornwell, ed., Nature's Imagination, Introduction (1995), and "The Scientist as Rebel," New York Review of Books (1995-05-25).

WIST Quotations

Higley, Brewster -- “My Western Home,” Smith County Pioneer (1873-11)

Dyson, Freeman -- The Scientist as Rebel, Part 1, ch. 1 “The Scientist as Rebel” (2006)