Lone Prairie from Spittin' Pretty by Annick Odom & Linen of Words

O bury me not on the lone prairie

These words came low and mournfully

From the cold pale lips of a youth who lay

On his dying bed at the close of day

He’d waited and pined til upon his brow

death’s shadows fast were drawin’ now

He thought of his home and his loved ones nigh

As the cowboys gathered to see him die

How oft I’ve heard the well-known words

Of the free wild wind and the sound of birds

I’ve thought of my home and the cottonwood bare

And the songs I’d learned in that childhood hour

I always wished to be laid when I died

In the old churchyard ‘neath the green hillside

By my father’s grave, there let mine be

O bury me not on the lone prairie

O bury me not on the lone prairie

Where the wild coyotes may howl over me

Where rattlesnakes hiss and the crow flies free

O bury me not on the lone prairie

And there is another whose tears will be shed
For one who lies on a prairie bed;
It pained me then and it pains me now—
She has curled these locks, she has kissed this brow.

I want to be laid where mother’s prayers

And sister’s tears will mingle there

Where my friends can come and weep over me

O bury me not on the lone prairie

where the dewdrop fall and the butterfly rest
where the wild blossoms bloom on the prairie’s crest
where the buffalo roam and the wind blows free
oh bury me not on the lone prairie

O bury me not and his voice fell there

But we heeded not his dying prayer

In a narrow grave just six by three

O we buried our boy on the lone prairie

where the dewdrop fall and the butterfly rest
where the wild blossoms bloom on the prairie’s crest
where the buffalo roam and wind blow free
oh we buried our boy on the lone prairie

• Appalachian Folk
• Ballads
• Classical
• bass
• clarinet
• Morgantown