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Ballad Of One Eyed Mike
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Hank Snow
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1
This is the tale that was told to me by the man with the crystal eye
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As I smoked my pipe in the camp-fire light and the Glories swept the sky
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As the Northlights gleamed and curved and streamed and the bottle of hooch was dry
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A man once aimed that my life be shamed and wrought me a deathly wrong
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I vowed one day I would well repay but the heft of his hate was strong
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He thonged me East and he thonged me West he harried me back and forth
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Till I fled in fright from his peerless spite to the bleak bald-headed North
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And there I lay and for many a day I hatched plan after plan
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For a golden haul of the wherewithal to crush and to kill my man
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And there I strove and there I clove through the drift of icy streams
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And there I fought and there I sought for the pay-streak of my dreams
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So twenty years with their hopes and fears and smiles and tears and such
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Went by and left me long bereft of hope of the Midas touch
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About as fat as a chancel rat and lo! despite my will
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In the weary fight I had clean lost sight of the man I sought to kill
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Twas so far away that evil day when I prayed to the Prince of Gloom
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For the savage strength and the sullen length of life to work his doom
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Nor sign nor word had I seen or heard and it happed so long ago
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My youth was gone and my memory wan and I willed it even so
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It fell one night in the waning light by the Yukon's oily flow
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I smoked and sat as I marvelled at the sky's port-winey glow
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Till it paled away to an absinthe gray and the river seemed to shrink
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All wobbly flakes and wriggling snakes and goblin eyes a-wink
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'Twas weird to see and it wildered me in a queer hypnotic dream
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Till I saw a spot like an inky blot come floating down the stream
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It bobbed and swung it sheered and hung it romped round in a ring
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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 its head
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Like butterflies of a monster size then I knew it for the Dead
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Its face was rubbed and slicked and scrubbed as smooth as a shaven pate
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In the silver snakes that the water makes it gleamed like a dinner-plate
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It gurgled near and clear and clear and large and large it grew
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It stood upright in a ring of light and it looked me through and through
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It weltered round with a woozy sound and ere I could retreat
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With the witless roll of a sodden soul it wantoned to my feet
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And here I swear by this Cross I wear I heard that floater say
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I am the man from whom you ran the man you sought to slay
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That you may note and gaze and gloat and say revenge is sweet
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In the grit and grime of the river's slime I am rotting at your feet
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The ill we rue we must e'en undo though it rive us bone from bone
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So it came about that I sought you out for I prayed I might atone
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I did you wrong and for long and long I sought where you might live
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And now you're found though I'm dead and drowned I beg you to forgive
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So sad it seemed and its cheek-bones gleamed and its fingers flicked the shore
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And it lapped and lay in a weary way and its hands met to implore
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That I gently said poor restless dead I would never work you woe
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Though the wrong you rue you can ne'er undo I forgave you long ago
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Then wonder-wise I rubbed my eyes and I woke from a horrid dream
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The moon rode high in the naked sky and something bobbed in the stream
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It held my sight in a patch of light and then it sheered from the shore
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It dipped and sank by a hollow bank and I never saw it more
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This was the tale he told to me that man so warped and gray
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Ere he slept and dreamed and the camp-fire gleamed in his eye in a wolfish way
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That crystal eye that raked the sky in the weird Auroral ray
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