The Dying Miner's Lament (1859)
Afar from the scenes of my youth and my childhood,
O'er mountain and wave I have wandered away;
And here,'mid these sands, these rocks, and this wildwood,
Is fading in sickness my last lingering day.
Fond mem'ry oft whispers in accents of sadness,
Of home, and of friends, and of joys left behind,
My wife, my dear children, their voices of gladness,
My fond doting mother,now dwell on my mind.
How fondly I hop'd, in the bosom of home,
To have spent the rich treasure I glean'd from the sand;
But ah! sad affliction and sorrow have come,
And doom'd me to die in this far distant land.
I've toil'd in the valleys--I've delv'd in the hills,
The streams and the bars I've prospected o'er ;
The wild dashing Buckland--the flow ing deep rills,
The gulches and creeks will see me no more.
By Buckland's wild water, then softly inter me,
The friends I love best, cannot stand round my bier;
No mother to sorrow--no wife to deplore me,
Or shed on my grave, a last parting tear.
The tempest may howl, and the storm may beat o'er me,
I shall not be disturbed by the deep thunder's roar,
But gently I'll sleep, though my friends are far from me,
My dear native land! I shall see the no more !
S. A. POTTER.
Notes
From the Beechworth Vic. Newspaper the Ovens and Murray Advertiser Fri 11 Mar 1859 Page 3.