Here's one I sing (to my own tune):


BACHIN'
(Charles Badger Clark)

Our lives are hid; our trails are strange;
    We're scattered through the West
In canyon cool, on blistered range
    Or windy mountain crest.
Wherever Nature drops her ears
    And bares her claws to scratch,
From Yuma to the north frontiers,
    You'll likely find the bach',
          You will,
    The shy and sober bach'!

Our days are sun and storm and mist,
    The same as any life,
Except that in our trouble list
    We never count a wife.
Each has a reason why he's lone,
    But keeps it 'neath his hat;
Or, if he's got to tell some one,
    Confides it to his cat,
          He does,
    Just tells it to his cat.

We're young or old or slow or fast,
    But all plumb versatyle.
The mighty bach' that fires the blast
    Kin serve up beans in style.
The bach' that ropes the plungin' cows
    Kin mix the biscuits true--
We earn our grub by drippin brows
    And cook it by 'em too,
          We do,
    We cook it by 'em too.

We like to breathe unbranded air,
    Be free of foot and mind,
And go or stay, or sing or swear,
    Whichever we're inclined.
An appetite, a conscience clear,
    A pipe that's rich and old
Are loves that always bless and cheer
    And never cry or scold,
          They don't.
    They never cry or scold.

Old Adam bached some ages back
    And smoked his pipe so free,
A-loafin' in a palm-leaf shack
    Beneath a mango tree.
He'd best have stuck to bachin' ways,
    And scripture proves the same,
For Adam's only happy days
    Was 'fore the woman came,
          They was,
    All 'fore the woman came.

From Clark's Sun and Saddle Leather, 1915. (text unaltered)