Luyện nghe bài hát The Shooting of Dan McGrew

A of the boys were whooping it up in the Malamute saloon;
The kid that handles the music-box was a jag-time tune;
Back of the bar, in a game, sat Dangerous Dan McGrew,
And watching his luck was his light-o'-love, the that's known as Lou.

When out of the night, which was fifty below, and the din and the glare,
There stumbled a miner fresh from the creeks, dog-dirty, and for bear.
He looked like a man with a foot in the grave and the strength of a louse,
Yet he tilted a of dust on the bar, and he called for drinks for the house.
There was none could place the face, though we searched ourselves for a clue;
But we his health, and the last to drink was Dangerous Dan McGrew.

There's men that somehow just grip your eyes, and hold them like a spell;
And such was he, and he looked to me like a man who had lived in
With a face hair, and the dreary stare of a dog whose day is done,
As he watered the green stuff in his glass, and the fell one by one.
I got to figgering who he was, and wondering what he'd do,
And I turned my head -- and watching him was the lady that's known as Lou.

His eyes went rubbering round the room, and he in a kind of daze,
Till at that old piano fell in the way of his wandering gaze.
The rag-time kid was having a drink; was no one else on the stool,
So the stranger stumbles across the room, and flops there like a fool.
In a shirt that was glazed with dirt he sat, and I saw him sway;
Then he clutched the keys his talon hands -- my God! but that man could play.

Were you ever out in the Great Alone, when the moon was clear,
And the icy mountains hemmed you in with a you most could HEAR;
With only the howl of a timber wolf, and you there in the cold,
A half-dead thing in a stark, dead world, clean mad for the called gold;
While overhead, green, yellow and red, the North Lights swept in bars? --
Then you've a haunch what the music . . . hunger and night and the stars.

And hunger not of the kind, that's banished with bacon and beans,
But the gnawing of lonely men for a home and all that it means;
For a fireside far the cares that are, four walls and a roof above;
But oh! so cramful of joy, and crowned with a woman's love --
A woman dearer than all the world, and true as Heaven is --
(God! how ghastly she through her rouge, -- the lady that's known as Lou.)

Then on a sudden the music changed, so soft that you could hear;
But you felt that your life had been looted clean of all it once held dear;
That someone had stolen the woman you loved; that her love was a lie;
That your guts were gone, and the best for you was to away and die.
'Twas the cry of a heart's despair, and it thrilled you through and through --
"I guess I'll make it a spread misere," said Dan McGrew.

The music almost away . . . then it burst like a pent-up flood;
And it seemed to say, "Repay, repay," and my eyes blind with blood.
The thought came of an ancient wrong, and it stung like a frozen lash,
And the lust awoke to kill, to . . . then the music stopped with a crash,
And the stranger turned, and his eyes they burned in a most peculiar

In a buckskin shirt that was glazed dirt he sat, and I saw him sway;
his lips went in in a kind of grin, and he spoke, and his voice was calm,
And "Boys," says he, "you don't me, and none of you care a damn;
But I want to state, and my are straight, and I'll bet my poke they're true,
That one of you is a of hell . . . and that one is Dan McGrew."

Then I ducked my head, and the lights out, and two guns blazed in the dark,
And a screamed, and the lights went up, and two men lay stiff and stark.
on his head, and pumped full of lead, was Dangerous Dan McGrew,
While the man from the lay clutched to the breast of the lady that's known as Lou.

These are the simple facts of the case, and I I ought to know.
They say that the stranger was crazed with "hooch", and I'm not it's so.
I'm not so wise as the lawyer guys, but between us two --
The that kissed him and -- pinched his poke -- was the lady that's known as Lou.