The Dying Cowboy

“Oh, bury me not on the lone prairie”;
Those words came slow and mournfully
From the pallid lips of a youth that lay
On his dying couch at the close of day.
He had wasted and pined till o’er his brow
Death’s shadows fast were drawing now;
He had thought of home and the loved ones nigh,
As the cowboys gathered to see him die.
How oft have I listened to those well-known words,
The wild wind and the sound of birds;
He had thought of home and the cottonwood boughs,
Of the scenes that he loved in his childhood hours.
“I have always wished to be laid, when I died,
In the old churchyard on the green hillside,
By the grave of my father, oh, let my grave be;
Oh, bury me not on the lone prairie.
“I wish to be laid where a mother’s care
And a sister’s tear can mingle there;
Where friends can come and weep o’er me;
Oh, bury me not on the lone prairie.
“Oh, bury me not—” and his voice failed there;
They paid no heed to his dying prayer;
In a narrow grave just six by three,
They laid him there on the lone prairie.
Where the dewdrops fall and the butterfly rests,
The wild rose blooms on the prairie’s crest,
Where the coyotes howl and the wind sports free,
They laid him there on the lone prairie.