New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1916-05-21
~THAT DIRTY LITTLE COWARD"-AND OTHER HEf
The Real Wild Vest, a
Vest That Is Passing,
Speaks Through Its
Cowboy Ballads.

And they make buch Fot, NO" ne keeps then
quiet
Is a downright mystery 70 me.
For they clattcr and they ehaw, and they Jaw.
jaw, jaw,
And each has a different desire;
II would aid the renown Of the best shop in tov,
t. supply them with half they desire
Now, Brigham Young was a stout man once.
And now he is thin and old;
And am sorry TO state he Is bald On the pate
Which once had a covering Of gold;
For his Oldest wives won't have white wool,
And his young ones won't have red,
So, with tearing II out and taking turn about.
They have torn all the hair OF his head
Now, the oldest wives sing songs all day,
And the young ones all sing songs;
And amongst such a crowd he has il pretty loud
They're as noisy as Chinese gOngs.
And when they advance for a Mormon dance
He is filed with the drest alarms,
For they're sure TO end the night with tsber.
nacle fight
To see who has the fairest charms
Now, il any man here envies Brigham Young
Let him go to the Great Salt Lake;
And il he has the leisure to enjoy his pleasure
He'll find it great mistake.
Is enough-there's no denial
So before you strive to be lord Of forty-fye,
Take two for a month on trial.
The Mormon songs, by the way, together
with "Greer County" are among the few songs
in the book that are designedly humorous
Comic songs, as such, are rare. Here is one
in the characteristic lying style that typfes
American humor TO q European:
DEER HUNT.
One pleasant summer day it came storm Of
snow;
picked up my old gun and a-hunting did 60
came across a herd of deer and trailed then
through the snow;
I traied them 10 the mountains where straight
up they did 60.
trailed them DER the mountains, trailed them
to the brim.
And trailed them to the waters where they
jumped in TO swim
While | was under water FIVE hundred feet or more
fred both my pistols; like cannon did they roar
picked up my venison and out of water came
To kill the balance of them deer, | thought It
would be fun.
So bent my gun in circles and fred round hil-
And out of three or four deer ten thousand
did kill
And if you doubt the truth Of this, tell you nov
TO know:
Just take my trail and 60 my rounds, as did
long ago.
And now comes song that is difficult to
catalogue. The sadness of cowboy ballads is
generally sentimental, and their tragedy is
usually little 700 utterly lugubrious TO be
quite convincing; this song is different In its
tenderness and simple pathos it stands alone
It's authorship is anonymous, but it must surely
be the work of one man; and he was a poet
Here it is:
THE DESERTED ADOBE.
Round the dobe rank sands thicky BLOWN,
It's ridges fill the deserted field;
Yet on this claim young lives hope were
sown
For all the years might yield;
And in strong hands the echong hoof pursu!u
wooden share turned up the sod
The toiler brave drank deep the fresh airs
brewin'
And sang content to God
woman fair and sweet has smilln' stryen
Through long and lonesome hours;
A blue-eyed babe. bit of earthly heaven,
Laughed at the suns hot towers
A bow of promise made this desert splendid,
This dobe their pride,
But what began so well, alas! has ended
The promise died.
Their plans and dreams, their cheerful labor
wasted
In dry and nisspent wears.
The spring sweet the summer bitter lasted
The autumn salt with tears.
Now "gyp' and sand do hide their onetms
yearnin';
Twas theirs; III. past
Gods ways are strange; we take so long In
learnin'.
To fail at last.
There, perhaps, speaks the heart Of the real
West-the West of yesterday, boisterous, reck-
less, romantic, and, somehow, tragic. land
of promise and adventure, of freedom and open
skies; but sometimes a land, too, of loneliness
and failure. 1t is well that these songs were
set down when they were, for ten years from
now they will have disappeared. The old West
is passing.
The last figure to vanish is the cowboy, the
animating spirit Of the vanishing era. He sits
his horse easily as he rides through a wide
valley inclosed by mountains, clad in the hay
purple Of coming night with his face turned
steadily down the long, long road.