Lone Prairie, Lyric Variant 02

This item is part of the I. G. Greer Folksong Collection which consists of more than 300 individual song titles and their variants as collected by Isaac Garfield Greer (1881-1967) from informants, primarily in Ashe, Wilkes and Watauga counties. The collection includes manuscripts, typescript transcriptions produced by Dr. Greer’s clerical staff, and handwritten musical notations. Songs range from traditional Child Ballads, traditional English and Scottish ballads as well as their American variants, to 19th century popular music to musical compositions of local origin.

Ballads

Last words--Songs and music

Burial--Songs and music

Cowboys--Songs and music

The Dyeing Cowboy, The Dying Cowboy's Prayer, Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie, Oh Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie

AC.113 Isaac Garfield (I.G.) Greer Papers and Recordings

W. L. Eury Appalachian Collection, Appalachian State University

Greer, I. G. (Isaac Garfield), 1881-1967

PDF

English

Text

O, Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie

The Dying Cow boy.

Oh,bury me not on the lone prairie.
These words came slow and mournfully
From the pallid lips of a youth who lay
On his dying couch at the close of day.

Oh, bury me not on the lone prairie
Where the wild coyote will howl o’er me,
Where the cold wind sweeps and the grasses wave.
No sunbeams rest on the prairie grave.

Again he listened to his well known world,-
To the wind’s soft sigh and the song of birds.
He thought of his home and his native bowers
Where he loved to roam in his childhood hours.

It matters not, I’ve oft been told
Where the body lies when the heart grows cold.
But grant ye, oh gratn ye this boon to me.
Oh bury me not on the lone prairie.

But I’ve ever wished that when I died
My grave might be on the cold hillside.
Let there the place of my last rest be.
O, bury me not on the lone prairie.

Let my death slumber be where my mother’s prayer
And a sister’s tears can be mingled there
Let me lie where my loved ones can weep o’er me
Oh bury me not on the lone prairie.

In my dreams I saw,- but his voice failed there.
They gave no heed to his dying prayer
In a narrow grave just six by three
They buried him there on the lone prairie.

May the light wing butterfly pause to rest
O’er him who sleeps on the prairie crest.
May the Texas rose in the breezes wave
Oer him who sleeps in a prairie grave.

And the cow boys now as they roam the plain ,
For they marked the spot where his bones have lain,
Fling a hand full of roses over his grave
With a prayer to him who his soul shall save.

Brown, Native American Ballads - 262 Randolph, 184 Laws, B 2 Cox, 54

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