Nightrider

When the sun sets down and the shadows rise

And the wind has wandered home

And the song of sleep pulls on your eyes

I shall set out alone

Along the trapper's trail we'll trot

Up to the timberline

Through glow upon the snow that's brought

Fluorescent by moonshine

Across the snow-blue snowshoe flats

Until the trail goes thin

To check the line of coyote traps

Along the rocky rim

The rim where they each stop to cry

Their sighs into the dark

Across the valleys far and wide

'Tis winter's meadowlark

And I can hear one calling now

From somewhere further on

So empty does it drift

And how his chorus carries on

The sound that sometimes even I

Will welcome as a friend

The mournful dead cold cry that sometimes

Tests the wits of men

Along the rim we wander

By the light of stars and moon

And time not ours to squander

For the day is rising soon

As here atop the palest ridge

We stop to watch the dawn

The glow above the Eastern Ledge

Says soon the night is gone

And gone am I

Along the draw

Before the shadows fade

And confident that no one saw

The midnight ride I made

Just tracks along the trapper's trail

And two coyotes less to wail

© 1999 Red Cliffs Press Music (BMI)