The Endless Tablelands

Where Texas meets New Mexico's domain,

There stretches out a vast and treeless plain;

The Llano Estacado, high and wide,

A kingdom of the grass on every side.

Its ancient rocks were shaped by wind and rain,

While distant mountains fed its stony plain;

The Caprock rose in rugged, towering walls,

Where earth descends and into canyons falls.

In fifteen forty-one, Coronado came,

And left the Spaniards' mark upon its name;

A boundless sea of prairie met his eyes,

With little sign of earth or distant skies.

The buffalo once roamed in countless herds,

And prairie winds disturbed the nesting birds;

The Comanche rode the open country free,

Beneath the vast and ever-changing sky.

Then cattle ranches claimed the western range,

And homesteads brought a new and lasting change;

The cowboys rode where longhorn cattle fed,

While windmills drew the water from the bed.

The Ogallala lies below the sod,

A precious store bestowed upon the land;

Its waters made the fields and harvests grow,

Yet dwindling wells reveal a hidden woe.

Today the cotton blooms in summer heat,

And grain fields stretch beneath the farmer's feet;

The oil derricks rise against the blue,

While ancient prairie grasses still push through.

O Llano, land of distances untold,

Of summer storms and winter sunsets gold;

Your history lives in every grassy acre,

A vast and storied realm of earth and sky