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.