Читать книгу Cowboy Songs, and Other Frontier Ballads - Various - Страница 14

On Buena Vista battlefield

A dying soldier lay,

His thoughts were on his mountain home

Some thousand miles away.

He called his comrade to his side,

For much he had to say,

In briefest words to those who were

Some thousand miles away.

"My father, comrade, you will tell

About this bloody fray;

My country's flag, you'll say to him,

Was safe with me to-day.

I make a pillow of it now

On which to lay my head,

A winding sheet you'll make of it

When I am with the dead.

"I know 'twill grieve his inmost soul

To think I never more

Will sit with him beneath the oak

That shades the cottage door;

But tell that time-worn patriot,

That, mindful of his fame,

Upon this bloody battlefield

I sullied not his name.

"My mother's form is with me now,

Her will is in my ear,

And drop by drop as flows my blood

So flows from her the tear.

And oh, when you shall tell to her

The tidings of this day,

Speak softly, comrade, softly speak

What you may have to say.

"Speak not to her in blighting words

The blighting news you bear,

The cords of life might snap too soon,

So, comrade, have a care.

I am her only, cherished child,

But tell her that I died

Rejoicing that she taught me young

To take my country's side.

"But, comrade, there's one more,

She's gentle as a fawn;

She lives upon the sloping hill

That overlooks the lawn,

The lawn where I shall never more

Go forth with her in merry mood

To gather wild-wood flowers.

"Tell her when death was on my brow

And life receding fast,

Her looks, her form was with me then,

Were with me to the last.

On Buena Vista's bloody field

Tell her I dying lay,

And that I knew she thought of me

Some thousand miles away."