Home on the Range (song) - Definition and Overview

Home on the Range is the state of Kansas State Song. The lyrics were written in the early 1870s by Brewster Higley, who was a doctor in Smith County. The music was written by Daniel Kelley.

Oh, give me a home, where the buffalo roam,

Where the deer and the antelope play,

Where seldom is heard a discouraging word,

And the skies are not cloudy all day.

Chorus:

Home, home on the range,

Where the deer and the antelope play,

Where seldom is heard a discouraging word,

And the skies are not cloudy all day.

Where the air is so pure, the zephyrs so free,

The breezes so balmy and light,

That I would not exchange my home on the range

For all the cities so bright.

Chorus

Oh, give me a land where the bright diamond sand

Flows leisurely down the stream;

Where the graceful white swan goes gliding along

Like a maid in a heavenly dream.

Chorus

The red man was pressed from this part of the West,

He's likely no more to return

To the banks of Red River where seldom if ever

Their flickering campfires burn.

Chorus

How often at night when the heavens are bright

With the light of the glittering stars,

Have I stood here amazed and asked as I gazed

If their glory exceeds that of ours.

Chorus

Oh, I love these wild flowers in this dear land of ours;

The curlew I love to hear scream;

And I love the white rocks and the antelope flocks

That graze on the mountain-tops green.

Chorus

Then I would not exchange my home on the range,

Where the deer and the antelope play;

Where seldom is heard a discouraging word

And the skies are not cloudy all day.

Chorus.

Media

Home on the range.ogg - Recording from Raiford Penitentiary, Florida, 1939 (Ogg format)

References

Smith Center, Kansas History (http://www.ukans.edu/~hersite/kcn-6/smithctr/smithctrhist.html)