The earliest publication of the cowboy song may be that in the Montpelier "Vermont Watchman" (June 1, 1887), p. 7, where it is said to have been known in Texas in the spring of 1880 as "The Song of the Dying Cow-boy":

SONG OF THE DYING COW-BOY

"Oh! bury me not on the lone prairie!"
These words came slow and mournfully
From the pallid lips of a youth who lay
On his dying couch at the close of day.

His cheeks grew pale and his pulse beat slow,
As the clouds of death o'er him rolled;
He talked of home and the loved ones there,
As the cow-boys gathered to see him die.

"Oh! bury me not on the lone prairie,
Where the wild coyotes will howl over me,
For I always wished to be buried, when I died,
In the little church-yard on the green hillside.

"It matters not, so I've been told,
Where the body lies when the heart grows cold,
But when I am gone weep not for me;
Oh! bury me not on the lone prairie.

"Oh! bury me not" --and the words failed there;
But we heeded not his dying prayer.
In a narrow grave, just six by three,
We buried him there on the lone prairie.

There the wind blows cold on a dark old trail,
There the moonbeams sparkled on a prairie grave.
'Tis the well-known tramp of a poor cow-boy
Who stayed far away on an old cow-trail.