Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads

<p class="tit-song">THE HABIT<SPAN id="footnotetag5" name="footnotetag5"></SPAN><SPAN href="#footnote5">[5]</SPAN> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN id="page327" name="page327"></SPAN>(p. 327)</span></p> <p>I've beat my way wherever any winds have blown,<br/> I've bummed along from Portland down to San Antone,<br/> From Sandy Hook to Frisco, over gulch and hill;<br/> For once you git the habit, why, you can't keep still.</p> <p>I settles down quite frequent and I says, says I,<br/> "I'll never wander further till I comes to die."<br/> But the wind it sorta chuckles, "Why, o' course you will,"<br/> And shure enough I does it, cause I can't keep still.</p> <p>I've seed a lot o' places where I'd like to stay,<br/> But I gets a feelin' restless and I'm on my way.<br/> I was never meant for settin' on my own door sill,<br/> And once you git the habit, why, you can't keep still.</p> <p>I've been in rich men's houses and I've been in jail,<br/> But when it's time for leavin', I jes hits the trail;<br/> I'm a human bird of passage, and the song I trill,<br/> Is, "Once you git the habit, why, you can't keep still."</p> <p>The <span class="pagenum"><SPAN id="page328" name="page328"></SPAN>(p. 328)</span> sun is sorta coaxin' and the road is clear<br/> And the wind is singin' ballads that I got to hear.<br/> It ain't no use to argue when you feel the thrill;<br/> For once you git the habit, why, you can't keep still.</p> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />