And some are wrapped in the linens of fine
And some like a guarding sign
But I was cradled on the twigs of pine
Down a lonesome mountain line
I lost my boyhood and found mine
A girl like a Salem clipper
A woman as straight as a hunting knife
With eyes as bright as the dipper
We cleared our camps where the buffalo feed
Unheard of streams were our flagons
And I sold my sons like apple seed
On the trail of the western wagon
They were right type boys, never so peaceful
A fruitful goodly muster
The eldest died at the Alamo
And the youngest fell with custard
The letter that told it burned my hand
Yet I smiled and said so be it
But I couldn't live where they fenced my land
You know it broke my heart to see it
I saddled red on broken coats
And rode him into the day there
And he threw me down like a thunderbolt
And rolled on me as I lay there
Now I lie in the heart of the fat black soil
Like the seed of a prairie thistle
It has washed my bones with honey and oil
And picked them as clean as a whistle
And my youth returns like the rains of spring
My sons like the wild geese of Lyon
And I lie and I hear the meadow larks sing
And there's much content in my dying
Go play with the towns you have built of your blocks
The towns where you might have found me
I'll sleep in my earth like a tired red fox
And my buffalo have found me
*