LAMENT OF THE GOLD-DIGGER.

———

BY E. CURTISS HINE, U. S. N.

———

’Tis the grief for their fate gives me mystical lore,

And coming events cast their shadows before.

Campbell.

’Tis evening, and I stand alone

On San Francisco’s desert shore,

The wandering night-winds sadly moan,

And shrieking sea-birds round me soar.

The weary sun hath sunk to sleep

Beyond the great Pacific’s wave,

While here I stand and idly weep

That I have been to gold a slave!

O, curses on the maddening cry

That echoed through my own green land,

And sent me forth, unwept to die,

Upon this lonely desert strand!

With spirits fresh the hills I trod,

And in the eager strife for gain

Forgot my country and my God,

And fevered fancies flushed my brain!

It came at last, the bitter thought,

That I was linked with toiling slaves,

Whose very life-blood had been bought

By selfish and designing knaves.

But all too late conviction came,

And with a down-cast, tearful eye.

I thought with anguish and with shame

I’d chased an echo here—to die!

O, vain was all our strife for wealth,

We ploughed the bed of many a stream,

All idly, and with ruined health,

Heaped curses on our fevered dream,

That drove us from our homes away,

Athwart the ocean’s furrowed breast,

To find with terror and dismay

That we were houseless Famine’s guests!

My heart grows sick—my eye grows dim,

As o’er the watery waste I gaze,

And powerless droops each nerveless limb,

And manhood’s pride and strength decays.

Adieu, my childhood’s home, for fate

Hath dimmed the brightness of my sky,

I’ve “dug” my grave, and found too late

I’ve chased an echo here—to die!