He was just a lonely cowboy,
With a heart so brave and true,
And he learned to love a maiden,
With eyes of hea'n's own blue.
They had learned to love each other,
And had named their wedding day,
When trouble came between them,
And Jack he rode away.
He joined a band of cowboys,
And tried to forget her name,
But out on the lonely prairie
She waits for him the same.
One night when work was finished,
Just at the close of day
Some one said "Sing a song, Jack,
That will drive dull care away."
When Jack began his singing
His mind it wandered back
For he sang about a maiden
Who waited at home for him.
"Way out on the lonely prairie
Where the skies are always blue,
Your sweetheart waits for you, Jack,
Your sweetheart waits for you."
Jack left the camp next morning
Breathing his sweetheart's name,
"I'll go and ask forgiveness
For I know that I was to blame."
But when he reached the prairies
He found a newly-made mound
And his friends they kindly told him
They had laid his loved one down.
They said as she was dying
She breathed her sweetheart's name,
And said with her last breathing
To tell him when he came:
"Your sweetheart waits for you, Jack,
Your sweetheart waits for you;
Way out on the lonely prairie
Where the skies are always blue."
["Cowboy Jack." It was first published in 1928 by Ina Sires in her book, Songs of the Open Range. Sires had worked as a school teacher in Camp Verde, Arizona (in central Arizona, about halfway between Phoenix and Flagstaff) in the 1920s. It was there she learned the song from one of her students. She shared, with Jim Bob Tinsley, that the melody was a waltz tune, well-liked in the area. Her version became the "standard" of this song. Here is her version from her 1928 book:]
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