A Cowboy's Prayer Postcard
CQ Engraving & Gifts
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"A Cowboy's Prayer" was written by Charles Badger Clark (1883-1957), one of South Dakota's most beloved citizens, who was named state poet laureate in 1939. "Badger" built and lived in a cabin called "The Badger Hole" in Custer State Park."
Send this postcard featuring "A Cowboy's Prayer" to a loved one, or keep as a collectors item.
- Photo courtesy of SD Dept. of Tourism
This postcard reads as following:
"(Written for Mother)
Oh Lord, I've never lived where churches grow.
I love creation better as it stood
That day You finished it so long ago
And looked upon Your work and called it good.
I know that others find You in the light
That's sifted down through tinted window panes,
And yet I seem to feel You near tonight
In this dim, quiet starlight on the plains.
I thank You, Lord, that I am placed so well,
That You have made my freedom so complete;
That I'm no slave of whistle, clock or bell,
Nor weak-eyes prisoner of wall and street.
Just let me live my life as I've begun
And give me work that's open to the sky;
Make me a pardner of the wind and sun,
And I won't ask a life that's soft or high.
Let me be square and generous with all.
I'm careless sometimes, Lord, when I'm in town,
But never let 'em say I'm mean or small!
Make me big and open as the plains,
As honest as the hawse between my knees,
Clean as the wind that blows behind the rains,
Free as the hawk that circles down the breeze!
Forgive me, Lord, if sometimes I forget.
You know about the reasons that are hid.
You understand the things that gall and fret;
You know me better than my mother did.
Just keep an eye on all that's done and said
And guide me on the long, dim trail ahead
That stretches upward towards the Great Divide.
-Badger Clark, Poet Laureate"