Folk and Traditional Song Lyrics:
Farewell to the Gold

Farewell to the Gold

Farewell to the Gold
(Paul Metsers)

Shotover River, your gold it is waning
And it's years since the color I've seen.
No use just sitting, Lady Luck blaming
I'll pack up and make a break clean.

cho: Farewell to the gold that never I found,
     Goodbye to the nuggets that somewhere abound;
     For it's only when dreaming that I see you gleaming
     Down in the dark deep underground.

It's nearly three years since I left my old mother
For adventure and gold by the pound.
With Jimmy the prospector, he was another,
For the hills of Otago we were bound.

cho:
We worked the Cardrona's dry valley all over
Old Jimmy Williams and me.
They were panning good dust on the winding shotover
So we headed down there just to see.

cho:

We sluiced and we cradled for day after day
Barely making enough to get by;
Then a terrible flood swept poor Jimmy away
During six stormy days in July.

RG