Miners Ups And Downs
Air:
Put's Original California Songster
Sacramento: Gardiner & Kirk, 1854
A pilgrim from away down East
Stood on Nevada's strand,
A tear was in his troubled eye,
A pick-axe in his hand.
The pilgrim stood, and looking down,
As one who is in doubt,
He sighed to see how fast
His boots were wearing out.
"Thrice have I left this cursed spot,
But mine it was to learn
The fatal truth, that 'Dust we are,
To dust we shall return!'"
Once more returned, at close of day,
To a cheerless, dismal home,
He vows if he was back in Maine,
He never more would roam.
Now hunger makes his bowels yearn
For yams or Irish roots:
But these he looks in vain to find,
Then tries to fry his boots.
The night is passed in happy dreams
Of youth and childhood's joys,
Of times when he got flogged at school
For pinching smaller boys.
But morn dispels these fairy scenes,
And want arouses pluck;
He shoulders pick and pan once more,
Again to try his luck.
He digs in dark, secluded depths,
The spots where slugs abound,
And, oh! what rapture fills his breast-
His pile at last is found!
His wardrobe changed, behold him now
In affluence and pride,
Surrounded by the forms he loves,
With joy on every side.
Pressed closely to his heart, he holds
His wife and chdren dear,
The latter shouting gaily,
While the former drops a tear