This is the pay-day up at the mines, When the bearded brutes come down; There's money to burn in the streets to-night, So I've sent my klooch to town, With a haggard face and a riband of red Entwined in her hair of brown. And I know at the dawn she'll come reeling home With the bottles, one, two, three — One for herself, to drown her shame, And two big bottles for me. To make me forget the thing I am And the man I used to be. To make me forget the brand of the dog, As I crouch in this hideous place; To make me forget once I kindled The light of love in a lady's face, Where even the squalid Siwash Now holds me a black disgrace.

Oh, I have guarded my secret well! And who would dream as I speak In a tribal tongue like a rogue unhung, 'Mid the ranch-house filth and reek, I could roll to bed with a Latin phrase And rise with a verse of Greek? Yet I was a senior prizeman once, And the pride of a college eight; Called to the bar — my friends were true! But they could not keep me straight; Then came the divorce, and I went abroad And "died" on the River Plate. But I'm not dead yet; though with half a lung There isn't time to spare, And I hope that the year will see me out, And, thank God, no one will care — Save maybe the little slim Siwash girl With the rose of shame in her hair.

She will come with the dawn, and the dawn is near; I can see its evil glow, Like a corpse-light seen through a frosty pane In a night of want and woe; And yonder she comes by the bleak bull-pines, Swift staggering through the snow.

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