Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1889-12-21
"oLD TIMES ROCKS"
blazes. and twelve O'Clock

For hsint he'd watch for twenty years.
And my days tramp's nearly done.
There's derned little shade along this road
But PHI take jest what can get,
For | amt nigh as pert as in 10
Althoug I m not sixty yet.
Young man? me-old Bill 1ownes?
Well, p'raps as the calendars go
For forty years I've run with the hounds
And the gait is beginning to slow.
There's older men in years, maybe,
More active, but that depends
On whether they've went and burned like me-
The candle of life at both ends.
But I've sowed the seed and 7 m reapin' the crop
With my nose as red as brick,
l plowed 70 no systematic harvest's my own,
And hain't no right for to kick,
l dropped my bread with the buttered side
down
Upon the sanded floor;
Would live al the same old headlong speed
If could but live life Ger?
Would I? Try me agin' and see,
For them were the dazzling days,
I'd live them over agin, you bet,
In the Ar2onauts golden maze
OF gray shirted giants and big long boots.
How plainly now recall
The fight we had with the yaller Piutes
Three miles from Sportsmen's Hall.
I wonder whar all the boys are gone
Whom l knew in that sunshiny day;
The pace, I'm afeerd, was leetle to hot
For most of them to stay.
mar lOLS TO rush IN ana 20 10 the IrOQL
When the leaders succumb to hard knocks,
But wish EN- well, wherever they are,
For the sake of ''Old Times Rocks"
Thar was little Bob Foskett, who lived at the
Bluff
He never knew much, we thought,
But they wrote HON forninst his name
For he's jedge Of the Supreme Court.
And his sister Grace, with her Donny young
face,
She might have been my bride;
But we never know things true worth
Until we'vecast it aside.
I wonder eff they've forgotten me
And the fun that on sundays we had
When our dust was weighed out, our duds all
washed
And our spirits were gallopin mad?
The hicseriLg candle of life flares up
And the sluggish old heart now bounds,
As think how fought win Delaware Jake"
And licked him in fourteen rounds.
And how the miners all roared when he fell
Knocked out by my lett hand lunge,
And how the gamblers tnrled pale in the face
When his seconds threw up the sponge
There were lots o. fool tricks in the days of
gold
And done en-, but this know
1t Hghtens these s0mber, sunset years
TO call back the blessed long ago.
Dan Markley. Handsome Dan" he was called,
Who ran off with Casey's wife,
He lit one night, in 8 gambling row
On the wrong end O Buckley's knife.
And Jim Mccormick, the poker sharp,
I'VE all knew Arkansas jim
He was drowned in the Yuba's boiling food
At place called "Sink or Swim"
There was Pete McLaughlin-"Caii Pete"
a hellion he was to ride
Hes herdin' sheep for twelve dollars month
Across on the Sydney side
And Barney Flynn, little Barney the Kid"
Who married Pete's sister Ann,
He got ripped up by a bronco steer
In the gtOekVardS CHEYENNE.
Hyur comes a man on a claybank boss,
His rides but an easy task,
I'll ak him for a new load for my pipe
And Dr. APPS he carries q flask.
Holland gin, mistopher. hyur's to yer health
And all yer folks too. by Jocks
I'll pledge ye a toast that love the most
And here's to the "0ld Times Rocks ="
He's gone tother way, rode off out o sight,
He wouldn't be seen on the road,
A talkin' long side of homeless tramp
That's staggerin' under LIES load,
While the iellers that climbed our shoulders
awhile
Never seemed to care at all
bow dirty their hands, so they got rich,
When they reached the top of the wall.
I feel I could tear and trample them down,
Like grizzly in his wrath
But an old dog to travel the stony road
And a pup for the garden path;
Up thar in the diggins among the boys
I don't get along so bad
IL only W0Su 1 get OOWu 10 tUWu
That memory drives me mad
think of myself as an innocent boy
In my home by tn Atlantic sea,
And I'm glad my folks can't see me now,
When l think what ought to be.
For eff was like Gould or Vanderbilt,
I'd give all the gold in the land
For the priceless bliss of mothers kiss
Or the touch of pure girls hand.
Hyur comes one now-she's lookin' at me
In pity, but what OF that2
I'll pull this thing down to hide my tears
They used to call it q hat.
And. now that I've filed my pipe again
With its lining of leaflets Drown,
I'll shoulder my bundle and grab my stick
And jog away up to'ards town.
Puff Whit! Into snowy white clouds
smoke blends with the autumn air,
As il floats away with thoughts of the days
That seemed so passing mir
And when my trsmping is ended for good
I'll yield without sigh or groan,
To start on the journey whence none have re-
turned
Ger the road I must travel alone.
December 5, 1889.
II B. u n Portland Or, Sunday Mercury,