The Ballad Of William Sycamore

G

[Verse]

G
My father was a mountaineer
    D                 G
His fist was a knotty hammer
       C                        G       Em
He was quick on his feet like a running deer
       G            C      G
And he spoke with a Yankee stammer

[Verse]

    C                   G     Em
And some are wrapped in linen fine
    C                   G
And some like a godling scion
    C                G        Em
But I was cradled on twigs of pine
       G         C        G
In the skin of a mountain lion

[Verse]

G
I lost my boyhood and found my wife
  D                 G
A girl like a Salem clipper
  C                      G       Em
A woman as straight as a hunting knife
     G       C             G
With eyes as bright as the Dipper

[Verse]

   C                          G       Em    C
We cleared our camp where the buffalo feed
                            G
Unheard of streams were our flagons
      C                  G     Em
And I sowed my sons like apple seed
       G            C       G
On the trail of the Western wagons

[Verse]

                                                  D
They were right, tight boys, never sulky or slow
                   G
A fruitful, goodly muster
    C                  G  Em
The eldest died at the Alamo
        G        C         G
And the youngest fell with Custer

[Verse]

    C                   G         Em    C
The letter that told it burned my hand
                       G
I smiled and said, "So be it"
      C                        G         Em
But I could not live when they fenced my land
       G        C             G
Oh, it broke my heart just to see it

[Verse]

  C                  G      Em    C
I saddled the red, unbroken colt
                    G
I rode him into the day there
       C                    G      Em
But he threw me down like a thunderbolt
       G            C    G
And he rolled on me as I lay there

[Verse]

G
Now I lie in the heart of the fat, black soil
         D                 G
Like the seed of a prairie thistle
       C                  G         Em
It has washed my bones in honey and oil
         G             C          G
And it's picked 'em as clean as a whistle

[Verse]

       C                       G        Em      C
And my youth returns, like the rains of Spring
                         G
My sons, like wild geese flying
      C                  G          Em
And I lie and I hear the meadowlark sing
            G       C          G
And there's much content in my dying

[Verse]

   C                           G            Em      C
Go play with the town you have built out of blocks
                             G
The towns where you may have bound me
  C                         G         Em
I sleep in the earth like a tired old fox
       G    C       G
And my buffalo have found me
  C                         G         Em
I sleep in the earth like a tired old fox
       G    C       G
And my buffalo have found me