Classic Poem

The poor, the old and rotten scows, were advertised to sail
From New Orleans with passengers, but they must pump and bail;
The ships were crowded more than full, and some hung on behind,
And others dived off from the wharf, and swam till they were blind.

Refrain:
Then they thought of what they had been told,
When they started after gold,
That they never in the world would make a pile.

With rusty pork and stinking beef, and rotten, wormy bread,
And captains, too, that never were up as high as the main-mast head,
The steerage passengers would rave and swear that they'd paid their passage,
And wanted something more to eat besides Bologna sausage.

Then they began to cross the plains with oxen, hollowing “haw”;
And steamers they began to run as far as Panama,
And there for months the people staid that started after gold,
And some returned disgusted with the lies that had been told.

The people died on every route, they sicken'd and died like sheep,
And those at sea, before they were dead, were launched into the deep;
And those that died while crossing the Plains fared not so well as that,
For a hole was dug and they thrown in, along the miserable Platte.