Here is another poem I wrote with the idea that it could be set to music.  As with “Lonesome Jim,” my good pal W.C. Jameson has done a very nice recording of it.

To the North of Old Cheyenne

On the plains of wide Wyoming

     To the north of old Cheyenne,

On her homestead on the prairie

     Lives my sweetheart Maryanne.

On a sunny summer morning

     You can see my blue-eyed gal

Out among the cactus blossoms

     On her buckskin horse named Pal.

For she loves to ride the rangeland

     Just as much as any man--

Through the wind and sun and sagebrush

     Of that wide and open land.

I recall the day I left her

     Standing there with reins in hand,

As I left to seek my fortune

     In the world beyond Cheyenne.

With her lower lip a-trembling

     And in each blue eye a tear,

She assured me that she loved me

     And that she would wait one year.

Full of hope and young ambition

     I went out upon the world,

Sure that well within a twelvemonth

     I'd be back to see my girl.

But the world has tricks and teases

     For a lad of twenty-one,

And I soon lost all my money,

     Plus my saddle, horse, and gun.

And I found myself a-groveling

     In a world of men uncouth,

Far away from wide Wyoming

     And the pastures of my youth.

Now there's singing in the parlor,

     Jolly songs and bawdy tunes,

As I fill the ladies' glasses

     And I polish the spittoons.

Day by day I hoard my pennies

     As by night I earn my pay,

Hoping soon to have the money

     That will set me on my way.

For the time is drawing nearer,

     As eleven months have passed

And I long to travel northward

     To my prairie home at last,

Where I hope to be united

     With my sweetheart Maryanne

On the plains of wide Wyoming

     To the north of old Cheyenne.