Ballad of William Sycamore

Lyrics

[Intro] And some are wrapped in the linen so fine And some like a godling's scion But I was cradled on the twigs of pine Down a lonesome mountain line [Verse 1] I lost my boyhood and found my wife 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 sowed my sons like apple seed On the trail of the western wagons [Verse 2] They were right, tight boys, never sulky or slow A fruitful, goodly muster The eldest died at the Alamo And the youngest fell with Custer A letter that told it burned my hand And 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 the red, unbroken colt And rode him into the day there And he threw me down like a thunderbolt And rolled on me as I lay there [Verse 3] 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 are flying And I lie and I hear the meadowlark sing And there's much content in my dying Go play with the towns you have built out of blocks The towns where you might have bound me I'll sleep in my earth like a tired red fox And my buffalo have found me