The Abandoned Claim.
PARODY.

Not a doubt was heard, nor discouraging thought,
As to prospect our claim we hurried;
Not a partner but hoped, as he plnnted his foot
On the spot where our fortures lay buried.

We dug it down bravely from morning till night,
The dirt on our shovels uplifting,
By the scorching sunbeams' dazzling light
And the sands most blindly sifting.

No paying dirt we found on the ledge,
Not the color of prospect to cheer us,
As we sat on the bank looking over the edge,
With our idle tools lying near us.

We thought as we sadly picked up our tools,
And prepared for a leave in a hurry,
How that miners hereafter would say we were fools,
As the claim would tell them our story.

Lightly they'll speak of the work we have done
And o'er our ill fortune will joke us,
But little care we for their jeers or their fun,
For digging this claim has not broke us.

The whole of this fruitless task was just done,
As the sun down the west was retiring,
And we heard the welcome and well-known gun
That our cook was suddenly firing.

Slowly but surely we dug out our bounds
From the hill where't had rested for ages;
We threw out the dirt, and we rolled out the stones,
And left it all bare on the ledges.

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Why are the United States like the sun?
Because their influence is felt all over the globe.

Put's Original California Songster, page 55

Not found in Dwyer & Lingenfelter, The Songs of the Gold Rush

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[Text notes by Artful Codger]
This appears to be a parody of a poem written by the Rev. Charles Wolfe ca. 1809 titled "On the Burial of Sir John Moore, who fell at the Battle of Corunna, 1809". Lord Byron commented that it was "the most perfect ode in the language." According to Parodies of the works of English and American authors (1884, p. 105)

Reading in the Edinburgh Annual Register a description of the death and burial of Sir John Moore, the young poet turned it into verse with such sublime pathos, such taste and skill, that his poem has obtained imperishable fame in our literature.

It was thus a ripe target for parody, and it may be unfortunate that the parodies are now more well-known than the highly-lauded original. (Parodies provides further details on Wolfe's writing of the poem, as well as the full text.)

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