The Lead Bull

The plains unroll like a sea without shore,

and I cross them alone at the head of my kind.

The storms know my name and the canyons my roar,

and I leave the soft valleys and shelter behind.

Behind me they follow through dust and through cold,

a thousand dark shoulders that move as one will.

I am old as the grass and the rivers are old,

and I lead them on still, and I lead them on still.

When the sky turns to iron and the cold comes to stay,

I won't drift with the herd-fear and run with the rest.

I turn to the storm and I open the way,

for to walk through the worst of it suits me the best.

So follow my track where the tall grasses part,

through the year and the weather, the famine, the flood.

I'm king of no kingdom but lord of my heart,

and the frontier runs on in the beat of our blood.