Upon the earth I’ve spent many a day.
Today is my last, I’ve not much longer to stay.

Now don’t shy away or feel sorry for me.
Once started down the trail of life, someday the end we will see.

She could charm the stars from the sky to the palm of her hand.
How lucky to love her, I a simple mortal man.

She was my wife, her name was Mary Lee.
She died and left me in the summer of twenty three.

I packed up and drifted then, so much alone.
Never found a place that felt much like home.

So I drifted around from ranch to ranch.
Riding the rough string, looking for the bronc that I couldn’t match.

Now time has caught up, I’ve gotten old.
Not much of my story, left yet to be told.

What’s this up in the sky I see, ghost riders coming for me?
No, it’s old Luke, Shorty and Buck, now I clearly see.

They’ve got my old horse Red, with an empty saddle for me.
What’s that, you say Luke?
Mount up, there’s a white cottage and someone waiting for me?

The old man died then and slumped into my arms.
I carried him in and lay him in his bunk, without much alarm.

We dressed him in his Sunday best.
Levis, faded shirt and boots, then folded his hands on his chest.

It was evening when we laid him to rest.
We each said a little something, tried to do our best.

Then the thunder rolled across the sky, from east to west.
I looked up, it made me choke up and get tight in the chest.

In the sky it’s the old man on Red heading home at end of day, what does he see?
A white cottage.
And there on the porch his pretty Mary Lee.