Consolation

by George Albert Leddy

I was tending the bar in a cheap café;

My spirits were light, and my heart was gay.

I had a job, and I knew I could eat;

And a bed to lie on when I wanted to sleep.

When a guy shuffled in, he looked like a bum;

And he threw down a quarter, and ordered a rum.

Well I’d been a bum, so it’s easy to see,

Why I gave him a smile, and a welcome “How-dee!”

Then he looked at me with a sort-o’ a grin,
That showed me the place where his teeth had been.

Then his eyes seemed to fill with a luminous light,

Like a man who is seeing a ghost in the night.

Then he looked at me, and he called me Lou,

And my heart stood still, for at once I knew—

‘Twas the lad who once I had called my pal;

The lad who had stolen my Little Sall.

Then I thought of the years since I’d left my home,

With a broken-heart, and to roam alone;

Cursing the traitor who’d wrecked my life;

Stolen my sweetheart to make her his wife.

Well the days were dark, and the nights were long;

The hate in my heart had become a song;

Singing to music to deaden my brain;

Singing to music to sharpen the pain.

I’ve traveled the mountains, the desert, the plain;

Fought through the cold, the heat, and the rain;

Slept in my bed-roll on hard frozen ground,

With coyotes and wolverines sniffing around.

I’ve list’d to the whip-poor-will calling at night;

Gazed at the stars as they twinkled so bright;

Listened to thunder rending the sky;

But not for a moment, forget them, could I.

Then my pal sort-o’ whimpered, and dropped to the floor,

As a three-hundred-pound cyclone barged through the door.

She was rugged, and burly, her face it was red;

And her hair, like a haystack, stood on her head.

Well he ducked to the corner, but she was too quick;

And soon she was dragging him out by the neck.

Though I’ve found my pals, I’ll continue to roam;

For I am convinced—there’s no place like home.

*****