Author Unknown
(See Copy of Original)
Last night while I sat dreaming my mind went running back
To the time when I was young and first entered on life’s track
And | thought of that old country across the deep blue sea
Where I had spent my childhood and never more would see
And in fancy roamed again in those dear old places where
In childhoods happy moments I always loved so dear
And it seemed as only yesterday that I was with the boys
That shared with me their triumphs their sorrows and their joys
And then my thoughts they took a jump and came to my manhood
And in fancy before an alter with a lovely girl I stood
And how bright the path of life looked as up that isle we strode
To be tied in hands of wedlock in that lovely church of God
And again my mind it jumps another year ahead
And I see myself in aging stretched upon a bed
And lots of loving faces around me I spy
They are looking very solemn for they think that I shall die
But the dearest of those faces is nearest to the bed
And never leaves my bedside until death has fled
Then another picture rises and I see myself way out upon the sea
With that lovely pardner by my side as happy as can be
For we are journeying to a country and the joy I cannot tell
For they say the air is pure and sweet and that I will soon get well
So we arrive in Texas away out on the frontier
And get well and strong again and then kill my first deer
And struggle with the rest to gather wealth and fame
And soon have horses sheep and cattle scattered on the plain
And then another cloud arises on my horizon
And all my sheep and cattle and horses are gone
For there has been a year or more without a drop of rain
And my cattle sheep and horses lie dead upon the plain
Then we set down to study what we should do and think
That as regards finances we are upon the brink
And we will go some other place and try our luck again
And so we make the venture and trek across the plain
And in fancy with my family I see myself a going west
With the horses and the wagons a doing their level best
Day after day month after month onward the journey goes
Until within our vision comes mountains of perpetual snows
And then we’re through the foothills and over the mountain pass
And there before us lies the promised land at last
And there we drive our stakes down and try once again
A little home to build so work with might and main
But the winters there are cold for the altitude is high
And they say if I stay there my wife will surely die
For the one that watched my bedside now is being in a bed
And the roses from the cheeks of that loving one has fled
So once more we are traveling for the doctor says to me
That I must take my pardner to a climate by the sea
So we pack up and travel three thousand miles or more
Till we’ve wandered from the Atlantic to the Pacific shore
And no farther can we travel towards the setting sun
And once more we drive our stakes down in the state of Oregon
And in the lovely climate where the sun is warm and bright
I feel once more like trying and again commence the fight
To make a pleasant home for my wife and children dear
And little thought of troubles or the sorrow that was near
For within two short years that I came within this land
That loved one has departed on the other shore to stand
And I am left alone with my little children five
And I have to hustle like the dickens to keep them all alive
But I am sad and weary and the time seems very long
And within another year my oldest child is gone
And as my mind looks back over the years that gone and past
I realize that time is flying very fast
Best no more of this dreaming I must have wheels loose in my head
So I will turn the light out and trundle off to bed