"49"
Joaquin Miller
e have worked our claims,- We have spent our gold,
- Our barks are astrand on the bars;
- We are battered and old,
- Yet at night we behold,
- Outcroppings of gold in the stars.
- Chorus—
- Tho' battered and old,
- Our hearts are bold,
- Yet oft do we repine;
- For the days of old,
- For the days of gold,
- For the days of forty-nine.
- Where the rabbits play,
- Where the quail all day
- Pipe on the chaparral hill;
- A few more days,
- And the last of us lays
- His pick aside and all is still.
- We are wreck and stray,
- We are cast away,
- Poor battered old hulks and spars;
- But we hope and pray,
- On the judgment day,
- We shall strike it up in the stars.