Porkopolis

Bacon

• You're salty and greasy and smoky as sin
• But of all grub we love you the best.
• You stuck to us closer than the nighest of kin
• And helped us win out in the West.
• You froze with us up on the Laramie trail;
• You sweat with us down at Tucson;
• When Injun was painted and white man was pale
• You nerved us to grip our last chance by the tail
• And load up our Colts and hang on.
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• You've sizzled by mountain and mesa and plain
• Over campfires of sagebrush and oak;
• The breezes that blow from the Platte to the main
• Have carried your savory smoke.
• You're friendly to miner or puncher or priest;
• You're as good in December as May;
• You always came in when the fresh meat had ceased
• And the rough course of empire to westward was greased
• By the bacon we fried on the way.
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• We've said that you weren't fit for white men to eat
• and your virtues we often forget.
• We've called you by names that I darsn't repeat,
• But we love you and swear by you yet.
• Here's to you, old bacon, fat, lean streak and rin',
• All the westerners join in the toast,
• From mesquite and yucca to sagebrush and pine,
• From Canada down to the Mexican Line,
• From Omaha out to the coast!