Domenick John O'Malley

Domenick John O'Malley Poems

Domenick John O'Malley Biography

D. J. O'Malley (1867/1868 – March 6, 1943), full name Domenick John O'Malley, also known as The N Bar N Kid White, was a prolific American composer of cowboy songs and cowboy poetry, as well as a writer on Western subjects. He is best known today for his song "When the Work's All Done This Fall", originally published as the poem "After the Roundup". Early life O'Malley was born in New York City, the son of a Civil War soldier who stayed in the military after hostilities ended. When D. J. was about two years old, his biological father had surgery to remove a minie ball, dying shortly thereafter. O'Malley's mother, Margaret, quickly married Charles H. White, also a soldier, giving her children his last name. The family spent several years at Army bases in Kansas, Wyoming, and Montana. In 1881 Mr. White disappeared and Margaret and her children moved to Miles City, Montana. Literary career In addition to poems, O'Malley wrote many stories about his friends and his work in the West. This work began in the 1880s, and continued for over fifty years. Many of his early pieces were published in the Miles City Stock-Growers Journal, under the pen name N Bar N Kid White. Many were popularized as songs. As they worked their way around the West, they were often altered or added to, and their origins were sometimes lost. When would-be poets later claimed authorship of his work, he could refute them by bringing out the originals with the dates right on the page. His career as a cowboy poet began in 1889 when he penned "To the Memory of Wiley Collins" about a chuckwagon cook who was killed by lightning. His other poems include "A Cowboy's Soliloquy", "The D2 Horse Wrangler", and "A Busted Cowboy's Christmas", all well known in the cowboy poetry community. His prose includes episodes such as "The Experiences of the F U F Roundup Crew Caught in the Cloudburst of June 1891" and "Where Custer Fell". He collected many of his works in a book entitled The N Bar N Kid White, published posthumously in 2000 by the Montana Historical Society, which holds his collected papers.)

The Best Poem Of Domenick John O'Malley

A Cowboy's Soliloquy

I am a cowpuncher
From off the North side,
My horse and my saddle
Are my bosom's pride;
My life is a hard one,
To tell you I'll try,
How we range-herded 'dogies'
Out on the Little Dry.

The first thing in the morning
We'd graze upon the hill,
Then drive them back by noontime
On water them to fill,
Then graze them round till sundown
And I've heaved full many a sigh
When I thought 'two hours night guard,'
After night fell on the Dry.

The next day was the same thing
And the next the same again,
Day-herding those same dogies
Out on the Dry's green plain;
Grazing them then bedding them,
One's patience it does try
When you think 'Now comes our night guard,'
After night falls on the Dry.

They're all right in the daytime,
But our Autumn nights are cold
And the least scare will stampede them,
And then they're hard to hold.
How many times I've 'darned' my luck
When dusk I would see nigh,
And say, 'I wish you were turned loose
E're night falls on the Dry.'

For a large bunch of cattle
Is no snap to hold at night,
For sometimes a blamed coyote howl
Will jump them in a fright,
Then a man will do some riding,
O'er rocks and bad-lands he will fly;
A stampede is no picnic
After night falls on the Dry.

Then should my horse fall down on me
And my poor life crush out,
No friendly hand could give me aid,
No warning voice would shout;
They'd hardly give a thought to me
Or scarcely heave a sigh,
And they'd bury me so lonely
When the night fell on the Dry.

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