[Introduction - A Cowboy's Prayer:]

Lord, I've never lived where churches grow I loved creation better

As it stood That day you finished it so long ago And looked upon your work

and

Called it good I know that others find you in the light That sifted down

through

Tinted window panes And yet I seem to feel you near tonight In this dim,

quiet

Starlight on the plains I thank you, Lord, that I'm placed so well That

you've

Made my freedom so complete That I'm no slave to whistle, clock or bell Nor

weak

Eyed prisoner of Waller Street Just let me live my life as I've begun And

give

Me work that's open to the sky Make me a partner of the wind and sun And I

won't

Ask a life that's soft or high Let me be easy on the man that's down Let me

be

Square and generous with all I'm careless sometimes, Lord, when I'm in town

But

Never let them say I'm mean or small Make me as big and open as the plains

And

Honest as the horse between my knees Clean as a wind that blows behind the

rains

Free as the hawk that circles down the breeze Forgive me, Lord, if sometimes

I

Forget You know about the reasons that are hid You understand the things that

Gall or fret Well, you knew me better than my mother did Just keep an eye on

all

That's done or said And right me

Sometimes when I turn aside And guide me on that long, dim trail ahead That

Stretched upward toward the great divide

Oh, bury me not on the lone prairie These words came low and mournfully From

the

Pallid lips of a youth who lay On his dying bed at the close of day

Oh, bury me not and his voice failed there But we took no heed to his dying

Prayer In a shallow grave just six by three We buried him there on the lone

Prairie.