Old Faro Bill was a man of might...

This work is from the United States and in the public domain because it was not legally published with the permission of the copyright holder before January 1, 2003 and the author died 88 years ago. This is a posthumous work and its copyright in certain countries and areas may depend on years since posthumous publication, rather than years since the author's death. Translations or editions published later may be copyrighted.


The longest-living author of this work died in 1936, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 87 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.

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Sent in a letter to Howard's friend Tevis Clyde Smith, circa November 1928. First published in The Collected Letters of Robert E. Howard, Volume 1, 2007. Variation on the ballad stanza, with short stanzas compressed into one long stanza.

592861Untitled1928Robert Ervin Howard

Old Faro Bill was a man of might
  In the days when the West was young,
He drank a gallon of booze each night—
   The toughest galoot unhung!
Oh, some men shrink at the sight of blood!
   Bill roomed in a cougar's lair
And for tobacco he carried a cud
   Of Mexican prickly pear!
Old Faro came of a wolfish breed,
   When he was a suckling child
He laughed at the marahuana weed
   For he said that is was too mild.
Old Faro he was a buffalo
   When it came to rough-and-tumble,
He laid the toughest battlers low
   With never a miss or fumble.
Some men stammer and halt and pause
   At the sight of lover's moons,
But Faro married a hundred squaws
   And a couple of octaroons.

This work is from the United States and in the public domain because it was not legally published with the permission of the copyright holder before January 1, 2003 and the author died 88 years ago. This is a posthumous work and its copyright in certain countries and areas may depend on years since posthumous publication, rather than years since the author's death. Translations or editions published later may be copyrighted.


The longest-living author of this work died in 1936, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 87 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.

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