Lyr. Add: The Dying Californian

1
Come, brothers, gather round my bed, for I am dying now.
The last bright gleam of hope has fled and calm, calm is my brow.
While reason yet retains her throne, come list to what I say
And bear this message to my home, my home, far, far away.
2
Go tell my father not to blame his wayward, daring child,
But kindly speak of his poor name on which in youth he smiled.
Go tell my mother, poor but fair, that my last act shall be
To breathe that well remembered prayer I heard beside her knee.
3
When I am dead take off this ring and bear it to that shore;
Tell Mary it is an offering of one who wakes no more.
Go tell her in the courts above I'll think on that blest hour
When first to me she pledged her love 'neath that dear shady bower.
4
Brothers, you soon must close my eyes and make my last cold bed,
For ere tomorrow's sun does rise I shall be cold and dead.
Brothers, farewell. Dear, happy home, I ne'er shall see you more,
For I must slumber here alone on San Francisco's shore.

No. 118, p. 219. No musical score.
"Sung by James Jepson of Hurricane, [Utah].... He learned it in Virgin City from Andrew J. Workman, a soldier who had been in the Mormon Battalion and who had brought it from California. Mrs. Susie S. Barlow of Salt Lake City sang, with few textual differences,
another version entitled "The Dying Cowboy," which she learned in Richville."

Lester a. Hubbard, ed., 1961, "Ballads and Songs from Utah," University of Utah Press.

The most distinctive of several versions of the song that I have seen.