Come all ye Texas Rangers wherever you may be
I'll tell to you a story that happened unto me
One night the age of fifteen years I joined a royal band
We marched from San Antonio unto the Rio Grande
And yet the captain told us
Perhaps he thought it right
"Before we reach the station, boys
I'm sure we'll have to fight"
We saw the Indians coming
We heard them give their yell
My feelings at that moment
No tongue could ever tell
We saw their glittering lances
Their arrows round us hailed
My heart was sink (sic) within me
My courage almost failed
I thought of my old mother
Who in tears to me did say:
"To you they all are strangers
With me you'd better stay."
I thought her weak and childish
And that she did not know
For I was bent on roaming
And I was bound to go
We fought them full five hours
Before the fight gave o'er
Three hundred of our soldiers
Lay weltering in their gore
Three hundred noble rangers
As ever trod the West
We laid them by their comrades
Sweet peace to be their rest
Perhaps you have a mother
Likewise a sister too
And maybe so a sweetheart
To weep and mourn for you
If this should be your condition
And you are bound to roam
I advise you from experience
You'd better stay at home