Ballad Of William Sycamore - Steve Young, Jerry Shook

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