Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads

<p class="tit-song">BRONC PEELER'S SONG <span class="pagenum"><SPAN id="page377" name="page377"></SPAN>(p. 377)</span></p> <p>I've been upon the prairie,<br/> I've been upon the plain,<br/> I've never rid a steam-boat,<br/> Nor a double-cinched-up train.<br/> But I've driv my eight-up to wagon<br/> That were locked three in a row,<br/> And that through blindin' sand storms,<br/> And all kinds of wind and snow.</p> <p class="add1em">Cho:&mdash;<br/> Goodbye, Liza, poor gal,<br/> Goodbye, Liza Jane,<br/> Goodbye, Liza, poor gal,<br/> She died on the plain.</p> <p>There never was a place I've been<br/> Had any kind of wood.<br/> We burn the roots of bar-grass<br/> And think it's very good.<br/> I've never tasted home bread,<br/> Nor cakes, nor muss like that;<br/> But I know fried dough and beef<br/> Pulled from red-hot tallow fat.</p> <p>I hate to see the wire fence<br/> A-closin' up the range;<br/> And <span class="pagenum"><SPAN id="page378" name="page378"></SPAN>(p. 378)</span> all this fillin' in the trail<br/> With people that is strange.<br/> We fellers don't know how to plow,<br/> Nor reap the golden grain;<br/> But to round up steers and brand the cows<br/> To us was allus plain.</p> <p>So when this blasted country<br/> Is all closed in with wire,<br/> And all the top, as trot grass,<br/> Is burnin' in Sol's fire,<br/> I hope the settlers will be glad<br/> When rain hits the land.<br/> And all us cowdogs are in hell<br/> With a "set"<SPAN id="footnotetag9" name="footnotetag9"></SPAN><SPAN href="#footnote9">[9]</SPAN> joined hand in hand.</p> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />