Steve Young - Ballad Of William Sycamore lyrics

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 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 camp 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 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 The letter that told it burned my hand I smiled and said, "So be it!" But I could not live when they fenced my land Oh it broke my heart just to see it I saddled the red, unbroken colt I rode him into the day there But he threw me down like a thunderbolt And he rolled on me as I lay there Now I lie in the heart of the fat, black soil Like the seed of a prairie thistle It has washed my bones in honey and oil And it's picked 'em as clean as a whistle And my youth returns, like the rains of Spring My sons, like the wild geese 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 may have bound me I'll sleep in the earth like a tired old fox And my buffalo have found me