Luyện nghe bài hát The Face On The Barroom Floor

Recorded by Snow
Author - Hugh Antoine

a balmy summer evening and a goodly crowd was there
Which well-nigh filled Joe's on the corner of the square
And as songs and witty stories through the open door
A crept slowly in and posed upon the floor.
"Where did it come from?" Someone said. "The has blown it in?"
"What it want?" another cried, "Some whiskey, rum or gin?"
"Here, Toby, seek him, if your equal to the work!"
"I wouldn't touch him with a fork, why, as filthy as a Turk."
This the poor wretch took with stoical good grace
In fact, he smiled as though he thought struck the proper place
"Come, boys, I know there's kindly hearts so good a crowd
Why, to be in such good company would make a proud."
"Give me a drink - that's what I want - I'm out of funds, you
When I had cash to treat the gang, this hand was slow
What? You laugh as tho' you this pocket never held a sou
Why, I was fixed as well, my boys, as of you."
"There, thanks - that's braced me - God bless you one and all
Next time I pass this good saloon, I'll make another
Give you a song? No, I can't do that - my days are past
My voice is cracked and my worn out and my lungs are going fast.
"Say, Give me another and I'll tell you what I'll do
I'll tell you a funny and a fact I promise, too
That I was ever a decent man, not a one of you think
But, I was some four of five years - say, give us another drink.
"Fill her up, Joe, I want to put life into my frame
Such little drinks, to a bum like me, are miserably
fingers - there, that's the scheme - and corkin' whisky, too
Well, here's luck, boys; and landlord, my best to you.
"You've treated me kindly and I'd like to tell you how
I came to be the sot you see before you now
As I you once, I was a man with a muscle, frame and health
And, but for a blunder, to have made considerable wealth.
"I was a painter - not one daubed on bricks and wood
But an artist and for my age, was rated pretty
I hard at my canvas and I was bidding fair to rise
gradually I saw the star of fame before my eyes.
"I made a picture perhaps you've seen, 'tis called the OF FAME'
It brought me fifteen hundred and added to my name
And I met a woman - now comes the funny part
eyes that petrified my brain and sunk into my heart.
"Why don't you laugh? it's funny the vagabond you see
Could ever a woman and expect her love for me
But 'twas so, and for a or two, her smiles were freely given
And when her loving lips mine it carried me to heaven.
"Boys, did you ever see a girl for whom your soul you'd
a form like the Milo Venus, too beautiful to live
With eyes like the purest of diamonds and a wealth of hair?
If so, 'twas she, for never was another half so fair.
"I was working on a one afternoon in May
Of a fair-haired boy, a of mine, who lived across the way
And Madeline it and much to my surprise
Said she'd like to know the man that had dreamy eyes.
"It didn't take long to know him and before the month had
My had stole my darlin' and I was left alone
And ere a year of misery had passed above my
The that I had treasured so, had tarnished and was dead.
"That's why I took to drink, boys - why, I never saw you
I thought you'd be and laughing all the while
Why, what's the matter - friend? There's a in your eye
Come, laugh like me; why 'tis only and women that would cry.
"Say, boys, if you'd give me just another whiskey, really be glad
And I'll draw here a picture of the face that drove me mad
Give me piece of chalk with which you mark the baseball score
And you shall see the lovely Madeline upon the floor."
Another drink and with chalk in hand the began
To a face that well might buy the soul of any man
And as he placed another lock upon the shapely head
With a fearful shriek, he leaped and across the picture - dead.