o bury me not on the lone prairie

an old ballad:

“O bury me not on the lone prairie,”

These words came slowly and mournfully

From the pallid lips of a youth who lay

On his cold damp bed at the close of day.

“O bury me not on the lone prairie

Where the wild coyote will howl o’er me,

Where the cold wind weeps and the grasses wave;

No sunbeams rest on a prairie grave.”

He has wasted and pined till o’er his brow

Death’s shades are slowly gathering now;

He thought of his home with his loved ones nigh,

As the cowboys gathered to see him die.

Again he listened to well known words,

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.

“I’ve ever wished that when I died,

My grave might be on the old hillside,

Let there the place of my last rest be—

O bury me not on the lone prairie!

“O’er my slumbers a mother’s prayer

And a sister’s tears will be mingled there;

For ‘tis sad to know that the heart-throb’s o’er,

And that its fountain will gush no more.

“In my dreams I say”— but his voice failed there;

And they gave no heed to his dying prayer;

In a narrow grave six feet by three,

They buried him there on the lone prairie.

May the light winged butterfly pause to rest

O’er him who sleeps on the prairie’s crest;

May the wild rose in the breezes wave

O’er him who sleeps in a prairie’s grave.

And the cowboys now as they roam the plain,

(For they marked the spot where his bones have lain)

Fling a handful of roses over his grave,

With a prayer to him who his soul will save.