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Songs of the Cattle Trail and Cow Camp ▾
contents
  1. Introduction “Look down, look down, that weary road, ’Tis the road that the sun goes down.” ⋮ “ ’Twas way out West where the antelope roam, And the coyote howls ’round the cowboy’s home, Where the mountains are covered with chaparral frail, And the valleys are checkered with the cattle trail, Where the miner digs for the golden veins, And the cowboy rides o’er the silent plains—”
  2. Part I Cowboy Yarns The centipede runs across my head, The vinegaroon crawls in my bed, Tarantulas jump and scorpions play, The broncs are grazing far away, The rattlesnake gives his warning cry, And the coyotes sing their lullaby, While I sleep soundly beneath the sky.
  3. Part II The Cowboy Off Guard I am the plain, barren since time began. Yet do I dream of motherhood, when man One day at last shall look upon my charms And give me towns, like children, for my arms.
  4. Part III Cowboy Types Down where the Rio Grande ripples— When there’s water in its bed; Where no man is ever drunken— All prefer mescal instead; Where no lie is ever uttered— There being nothin’ one can trade; Where no marriage vows are broken ’Cause the same are never made.
  5. Endnotes
English ▾

Songs of the Cattle Trail and Cow Camp

John A. Lomax

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“That these dear friends I leave behind
May keep kind hearts’ remembrance of the love we had.”

Solon

In affectionate gratitude to a group of men, my intimate friends during College days (brought under one roof by a “Fraternity”), whom I still love not less but more,

  • Will Prather, Hammett Hardy, Penn Hargrove and Harry Steger, of precious and joyous memory;

  • Norman Crozier, not yet quite emerged from Presbyterianism;

  • Eugene Barker, cynical, solid, unafraid;

  • “Cap’en” Duval, a gentleman of Virginia, sah;

  • Ed Miller, redheaded and royal-hearted;

  • Bates MacFarland, calm and competent without camouflage;

  • Jimmie Haven, who has put ’em over every good day since;

  • Charley Johnson, “the Swede”—the fattest, richest and dearest of the bunch;

  • Edgar Witt, whose loyal devotion and pertinacious energy built the “Frat” house;

  • Roy Bedichek, too big for any job he has yet tackled;

  • “Curley” Duncan, who possesses all the virtues of the old time cattleman and none of the vices of the new;

  • Rom Rhome, the quiet and canny counter of coin;

  • Gavin Hunt, student and lover of all things beautiful;

  • Dick Kimball, the soldier; every inch of him a handsome man;

  • Alex and Bruce and Dave and George and “Freshman” Mathis and Clarence, the six Freshmen we “took in”; while Ike MacFarland, Alfred Pierce Ward, and Guy and Charlie Witt were still in the process of assimilation—

To this group of God’s good fellows, I dedicate this little book.

No loopholes now are framing
Lean faces, grim and brown,
No more keen eyes are aiming
To bring the redskin down;
But every wind careening
Seems here to breathe a song—
A song of brave careering,
A saga of the strong.

Introduction

“Look down, look down, that weary road,
’Tis the road that the sun goes down.”
⋮
“ ’Twas way out West where the antelope roam,
And the coyote howls ’round the cowboy’s home,
Where the mountains are covered with chaparral frail,
And the valleys are checkered with the cattle trail,
Where the miner digs for the golden veins,
And the cowboy rides o’er the silent plains—”

The Songs of the Cattle Trail and Cow Camp does not purport to be an anthology of Western verse. As its title indicates, the contents of the book are limited to attempts, more or less poetic, in translating scenes connected with the life of a cowboy. The volume is in reality a byproduct of my earlier collection, Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads. In the former book I put together what seemed to me to be the best of the songs created and sung by the cowboys as they went about their work. In making the collection, the cowboys often sang or sent to me songs which I recognized as having already been in print; although the singer usually said that some other cowboy had sung the song to him and that he did not know where it had originated. For example, one night in New Mexico a cowboy sang to me, in typical cowboy music, Larry Chittenden’s entire “Cowboys’ Christmas Ball”; since that time the poem has often come to me in manuscript form as an original cowboy song. The changes—usually, it must be confessed, resulting in bettering the verse—which have occurred in oral transmission, are most interesting. Of one example, Charles Badger Clark’s “High Chin Bob,” I have printed, following Mr. Clark’s poem, a cowboy version, which I submit to Mr. Clark and his admirers for their consideration.

In making selections for this volume from a large mass of material that came into my ballad hopper while hunting cowboy songs as a Traveling Fellow from Harvard University, I have included the best of the verse given me directly by the cowboys; other selections have come in through repeated recommendation of these men; others are vagrant verses from Western newspapers; and still others have been lifted from collections of Western verse written by such men as Charles Badger Clark, Jr., and Herbert H. Knibbs. To these two authors, as well as others who have permitted me to make use of their work, the grateful thanks of the collector are extended. As will be seen, almost one-half of the selections have no assignable authorship. I am equally grateful to these unknown authors.

All those who found Cowboy Songs diverting, it is believed, will make welcome The Songs of the Cattle Trail and Cow Camp. Many of these have this claim to be called songs: they have been set to music by the cowboys, who, in their isolation and loneliness, have found solace in narrative or descriptive verse devoted to cattle scenes. Herein, again, through these quondam songs we may come to appreciate something of the spirit of the big West—its largeness, its freedom, its wholehearted hospitality, its genuine friendship. Here again, too, we may see the cowboy at work and at play; hear the jingle of his big bell spurs, the swish of his rope, the creaking of his saddle gear, the thud of thousands of hoofs on the long, long trail winding from Texas to Montana; and know something of the life that attracted from the East some of its best young blood to a work that was necessary in the winning of the West. The trails are becoming dust covered or grass grown or lost underneath the farmers’ furrow; but in the selections of this volume, many of them poems by courtesy, men of today and those who are to follow, may sense, at least in some small measure, the service, the glamour, the romance of that knight-errant of the plains—the American cowboy.

J. A. L.

The University of Texas,
Austin, July 9, 1919.

Part I

Cowboy Yarns

The centipede runs across my head,
The vinegaroon crawls in my bed,
Tarantulas jump and scorpions play,
The broncs are grazing far away,
The rattlesnake gives his warning cry,
And the coyotes sing their lullaby,
While I sleep soundly beneath the sky.

Out Where the West Begins

Out where the handclasp’s a little stronger,
Out where the smile dwells a little longer,
That’s where the West begins;
Out where the sun is a little brighter,
Where the snows that fall are a trifle whiter,
Where the bonds of home are a wee bit tighter,
That’s where the West begins.

Out where the skies are a trifle bluer,
Out where friendship’s a little truer,
That’s where the West begins;
Out where a fresher breeze is blowing,
Where there’s laughter in every streamlet flowing,
Where there’s more of reaping and less of sowing,
That’s where the West begins.

Out where the world is in the making,
Where fewer hearts in despair are aching,
That’s where the West begins;
Where there’s more of singing and less of sighing,
Where there’s more of giving and less of buying,
And a man makes friends without half trying,
That’s where the West begins.

Arthur Chapman.

The Shallows of the Ford

Did you ever wait for daylight when the stars along the river
Floated thick and white as snowflakes in the water deep and strange,
Till a whisper through the aspens made the current break and shiver
As the frosty edge of morning seemed to melt and spread and change?

restoring your place…

fetching the rest…

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thank you for reading

Songs of the Cattle Trail and Cow Camp by John A. Lomax. The text is in the US public domain, from the Standard Ebooks edition. Served from our own copy; read on their site for the full edition with images and typography.

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