Whoopee ti yi, git along, little dogies;
It's my misfortune and none of your own.
Whoopee ti yi, git along, little dogies;
For you know Wyoming will be your new home.
As for the songs of this collection, I have violated the ethics of ballad-gatherers, in a few instances, by selecting and putting together what seemed to be the best lines from different versions, all telling the same story. Frankly, the volume is meant to be popular. The songs have been arranged in some such haphazard way as they were collected,—jotted down on a table in the rear of saloons, scrawled on an envelope while squatting about a campfire, caught behind the scenes of a broncho-busting outfit. Later, it is hoped that enough interest will be aroused to justify printing all the variants of these songs, accompanied by the music and such explanatory notes as may be useful; the negro folk-songs, the songs of the lumber jacks, the songs of the mountaineers, and the songs of the sea, already partially collected, being included in the final publication. The songs of this collection, never before in print, as a rule have been taken down from oral recitation. In only a few instances have I been able to discover the authorship of any song. They seem to have sprung up as quietly and mysteriously as does the grass on the plains. All have been popular with the range riders, several being current all the way from Texas to Montana, and quite as long as the old Chisholm Trail stretching between these states. Some of the songs the cowboy certainly composed; all of them he sang. Obviously, a number of the most characteristic cannot be printed for general circulation. To paraphrase slightly what Sidney Lanier said of Walt Whitman's poetry, they are raw collops slashed from the rump of Nature, and never mind the gristle. Likewise some of the strong adjectives and nouns have been softened,—Jonahed, as George Meredith would have said. There is, however, a Homeric quality about the cowboy's profanity and vulgarity that pleases rather than repulses. The broad sky under which he slept, the limitless plains over which he rode, the big, open, free life he lived near to Nature's breast, taught him simplicity, calm, directness. He spoke out plainly the impulses of his heart. But as yet so-called polite society is not quite willing to hear.
It is entirely impossible to acknowledge the assistance I have received from many persons. To Professors Barrett Wendell and G.L. Kittredge, of Harvard, I must gratefully acknowledge constant and generous encouragement. Messrs. Jeff Hanna, of Meridian, Texas; John B. Jones, a student of the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas; H. Knight, Sterling City, Texas; John Lang Sinclair, San Antonio; A.H. Belo & Co., Dallas; Tom Hight, of Mangum, Oklahoma; R. Bedichek, of Deming, N.M.; Benjamin Wyche, Librarian of the Carnegie Library, San Antonio; Mrs. M.B. Wight, of Ft. Thomas, Arizona; Dr. L.W. Payne, Jr., and Dr. Morgan Callaway, Jr., of the University of Texas; and my brother, R.C. Lomax, Austin;—have rendered me especially helpful service in furnishing material, for which I also render grateful thanks.
Among the negroes, rivermen, miners, soldiers, seamen, lumbermen, railroad men, and ranchmen of the United States and Canada there are many indigenous folk-songs not included in this volume. Of some of them I have traces, and I shall surely run them down. I beg the co-operation of all who are interested in this vital, however humble, expression of American literature.
J.A.L.
Deming, New Mexico,
August 8, 1910.
COWBOY SONGS AND OTHER FRONTIER BALLADS
THE DYING COWBOY[1]
"O bury me not on the lone prairie,"
These words came low and mournfully
From the pallid lips of a youth who lay
On his dying bed at the close of day.
He had wailed in pain till o'er his brow
Death's shadows fast were gathering now;
He thought of his home and his loved ones nigh
As the cowboys gathered to see him die.
"O bury me not on the lone prairie
Where the wild cayotes will howl o'er me,
In a narrow grave just six by three,
O bury me not on the lone prairie.