Yorick
- Hard by an excavated street one sat
- In solitary session on the sand;
- And ever and anon he spake and spat
- And spake again-a yellow skull in hand,
- To which that retrospective Pioneer
- Addressed the few remarks that follow here:
- 'Who are you? Did you come 'der blains agross,'
- Or 'Horn aroundt'? In days o' '49
- Did them thar eye-holes see the Southern Cross
- From the Antarctic Sea git up an' shine?
- Or did you drive a bull team 'all the way
- From Pike,' with Mr. Joseph Bowers?-say!
- 'Was you in Frisco when the water came
- Up to Montgum'ry street? and do you mind
- The time when Peters run the faro game
- Jim Peters from old Mississip-behind
- Wells Fargo's, where he subsequent was bust
- By Sandy, as regards both bank and crust?
- 'I wonder was you here when Casey shot
- James King o' William? And did you attend
- The neck-tie dance ensuin'? _I_ did not,
- But j'ined the rush to Go Creek with my friend
- Ed'ard McGowan; for we was resolved
- In sech diversions not to be involved.
- 'Maybe I knowed you; seems to me I've seed
- Your face afore. I don't forget a face,
- But names I disremember-I'm that breed
- Of owls. I'm talking some'at into space
- An' maybe my remarks is too derned free,
- Seein' yer name is unbeknown to me.
- 'Ther' was a time, I reckon, when I knowed
- Nigh onto every dern galoot in town.
- That was as late as '50. Now she's growed
- Surprisin'! Yes, me an' my pardner, Brown,*
- Was wide acquainted. If ther' was a cuss
- We didn't know, the cause was-he knowed us.
- 'Maybe you had that claim adjoinin' mine
- Up thar in Calaveras. Was it you
- To which Long Mary took a mighty shine,
- An' throwed squar' off on Jake the Kangaroo?
- I guess if she could see ye now she'd take
- Her chance o' happiness along o' Jake.
- 'You ain't so purty now as you was then:
- Yer eyes is nothin' but two prospect holes,
- An' women which are hitched to better men
- Would hardly for sech glances damn their souls,
- As Lengthie did. By G--! I _hope_ it's you,
- For' _(kicks the skull)_ 'I'm Jake the Kangaroo.'
* what happened to
my friend Ed'ard McGowan
?
