My roots are buried deep in Texas ground.
I grip the harder when the great winds blow.
I lift my face to drink the Texas rain.
I bow beneath her gifts of gentle snow.

I know the near white faces of her stars.
The prairie moon has bathed me centuries long.
From out my heart a million mocking birds
Have flown to fill the prairie world with song.

Comanche, Tejas, in my shadow stand
To pray the great All Father, and to sign
The treaty with young Austin, vowing peace.
Leaving me guardian of the boundary line.

For I am Texas' oldest pioneer,
Have weathered all her changes to this hour.
Have watched her travail and her victory,
Her urgent growth from poverty to power.

She built a city round about my tent
Whose growing towers, how shining fair they seem!
I brood unchanged, yet in my heart I keep
Memory on memory, dream on dream.

And have I known the last sweet Texas Spring?
No more the green beneath, the blue above?
Oh children, for whose hour I watched in hope,
Let me cling longer to the soil I love!