Oh Sicily's a bonny isle
    For boon vacationing;
And in its blue and golden smile
    I lived a lyric Spring.
And that is why I was so glad
    To laud its lure again
To that poor, pale Italian lad
    Who faced me in the train.

Monotonously streaming past,
    The Kansas prairie
Was bludgeoned  by the Winter blast
    And drearyful to see.
But when of soft Sicilian skies
    I spoke, how he was stirred!
And harked to me with starry eyes,
    Yet never uttered word.

Of one wee village by the sea
    I babbled to the  boy;
Of sardine net and almond tree,
    And gentleness and joy.
And then the man who sat by him,
    As paradise I praised,
Broke in on us with visage grim:
    "That's where the kid was raised."

So when they rose I saw his hands, 
    Ah! Sorely was I shocked,
For they were bound with iron bands,
    His wrists were steely locked.
And as they gravely walked away
    It gave me quite a turn
To hear the train conductor say:
    "That Dago punk will burn."