As our footsteps through Pithole we hurried;
Not a well was discharging an unctuous stream
Where the hopes of the oilmen lay buried!
We walk’d the dead city till far in the night—
Weeds growing where wheels once were turning—
While seeking to find by the struggling moonlight
Some symptom of gas dimly burning.
No useless regret should encumber man’s breast,
Though dry-holes and Pitholes may bound him;
So we lay like a warrior taking his rest,