Wagon wheel gap is a place I never saw 
And Red Horse Gulch and the chutes of Cripple Creek. 

Red-shirted miners picking in the sluices, 
Gamblers with red neckties in the night streets, 
The fly-by-night towns of Bull Frog and Skiddoo, 
The night-cool limestone white of Death Valley, 
The straight drop of eight hundred feet 
From a shelf road in the Hasiampa Valley: 
Men and places they are I never saw. 

I have seen three White Horse taverns, 
One in Illinois, one in Pennsylvania, 
One in a timber-hid road of Wisconsin. 

I bought cheese and crackers 
Between sun showers in a place called White Pigeon 
Nestling with a blacksmith shop, a post-office, 
And a berry-crate factory, where four roads cross. 

On the Pecatonica River near Freeport 
I have seen boys run barefoot in the leaves 
Throwing clubs at the walnut trees 
In the yellow-and-gold of autumn, 
And there was a brown mash dry on the inside of their hands. 
On the Cedar Fork Creek of Knox County 
I know how the fingers of late October 
Loosen the hazel nuts. 
I know the brown eyes of half-open hulls. 
I know boys named Lindquist, Swanson, Hildebrand. 
I remember their cries when the nuts were ripe. 
And some are in machine shops; some are in the navy; 
And some are not on payrolls anywhere. 
Their mothers are through waiting for them to come home.