Strike By The Moon

The pounding of an earthquake,
The booming of thunder
A stampede of buffalo ripped the plains asunder
Full Ten miles across and ten million strong
They gave their flesh to the Comanche
Their spirit to our song
Unrivaled on horseback fearsome in war
Comanche were proud - fighters to the core
From distant encampments, unheard and unseen
We would strike by the moon and ride like the wind

Stretching North to Wyoming
From the Central Texas Plain
Oklahoma to Nebraska and south to New Spain
Blinding blizzards in winter desert dry in the sun
Comancheria where the buffalo run
We knew every trail and river, every rocky face
Loved to gamble on our horses, never lost a race
With a lance, bow and shield made from buffalo skin
We would strike by the moon and ride like the wind

If you camp along the Arkansas,
On a soft summer night
You might see riders silhouetted
In the Comanche moonlight
And if you listen with your spirit
As your campfire is dimmed
You might hear laughter of Comanche children
Carried on the wind

It was not the Texas Ranger or Cavalry patrol
But cholera and smallpox that took such a deadly toll
Yamparika, Penateka, Kotsoteka, and Quahadis
Our medicine failed against the Taibo disease
Quanah Parker surrendered in seventy five
The white man aimed his long gun all the buffalo died
Only a memory where an empire had been
We would strike by the moon and ride like the wind
There will never be a nation like Comanche again
We would strike by the moon and ride
Ride like the wind