Текст песни Ballad Of One Eyed Mike

This is the tale that was told to me

By the man with the crystal eye

As I smoked my pipe in the camp-fire light

And the Glories swept the sky

As the Northlights gleamed and curved and streamed

And the bottle of hooch was dry.

A man once aimed that my life be shamed

And wrought me a deathly wrong

I vowed one day I would well repay

But the heft of his hate was strong.

He thonged me East and he thonged me West

He harried me back and forth

Till I fled in fright from his peerless spite

To the bleak bald-headed North.

And there I lay and for many a day

I hatched plan after plan

For a golden haul of the wherewithal

To crush and to kill my man.

And there I strove and there I clove

Through the drift of icy streams

And there I fought and there I sought

For the pay-streak of my dreams.

So twenty years with their hopes and fears

And smiles and tears and such

Went by and left me long bereft

Of hope of the Midas touch.

About as fat as a chancel rat

And lo despite my will

In the weary fight I had clean lost sight

Of the man I sought to kill.

Twas so far away that evil day

When I prayed to the Prince of Gloom

For the savage strength and the sullen length

Of life to work his doom.

Nor sign nor word had I seen or heard

And it happed so long ago

My youth was gone and my memory wan

And I willed it even so.

It fell one night in the waning light

By the Yukon's oily flow

I smoked and sat as I marvelled at

The sky's port-winey glow.

Till it paled away to an absinthe gray

And the river seemed to shrink

All wobbly flakes and wriggling snakes

And goblin eyes a-wink.

'Twas weird to see and it wildered me

In a queer hypnotic dream

Till I saw a spot like an inky blot

Come floating down the stream.

It bobbed and swung it sheered and hung

It romped round in a ring

It seemed to play in a tricksome way

It sure was a merry thing.
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In freakish flights strange oily lights

Came fluttering round it's head

Like butterflies of a monster size

Then I knew it for the Dead.

It's face was rubbed and slicked and scrubbed

As smooth as a shaven pate

In the silver snakes that the water makes

It gleamed like a dinner-plate.

It gurgled near and clear and clear

And large and large it grew

It stood upright in a ring of light

And it looked me through and through.

It weltered round with a woozy sound

And ere I could retreat

With the witless roll of a sodden soul

It wantoned to my feet.

And here I swear by this Cross I wear

I heard that floater say

I am the man from whom you ran

The man you sought to slay.

That you may note and gaze and gloat

And say revenge is sweet

In the grit and grime of the river's slime

I am rotting at your feet.

The I'll we rue we must e'en undo

Though it rive us bone from bone

So it came about that I sought you out

For I prayed I might atone.

I did you wrong and for long and long

I sought where you might live

And now you're found though I'm dead and drowned

I beg you to forgive.

So sad it seemed and it's cheek-bones gleamed

And it's fingers flicked the shore

And it lapped and lay in a weary way

And it's hands met to implore.

That I gently said poor restless dead

I would never work you woe

Though the wrong you rue you can ne'er undo

I forgave you long ago.

Then wonder-wise I rubbed my eyes

And I woke from a horrid dream

The moon rode high in the naked sky

And something bobbed in the stream.

It held my sight in a patch of light

And then it sheered from the shore

It dipped and sank by a hollow bank

And I never saw it more.

This was the tale he told to me

That man so warped and gray

Ere he slept and dreamed and the camp-fire gleamed

In his eye in a wolfish way.

That crystal eye that raked the sky

In the weird Auroral ray.