| The old Jimmy Woodser comes into the bar
|
| Unwelcomed, unnoticed, unknown,
|
| Too old and too odd to be drunk with, by far;
|
| So he glides to the end where the lunch baskets are,
|
| And they say that he tipples alone.
|
| And they say that he tipples alone.
|
| His frockcoat is green and the nap is no more,
|
| And his hat is not quite at its best;
|
| He wears the peaked collar our grandfathers wore,
|
| The black-ribbon tie that was legal of yore,
|
| And the coat buttoned over his breast.
|
| And the coat buttoned over his breast.
|
| But I dreamed, as he tasted his 'bitter' to-night,
|
| And the lights in the bar-room grew dim,
|
| That the shades of the friends of that other day’s light,
|
| And of girls that were bright in our grandfathers" sight,
|
| Lifted shadowy glasses to him.
|
| Lifted shadowy glasses to him.
|
| Yes the old Jimmy Woodser comes into the bar
|
| Unwelcomed, unnoticed, unknown,
|
| Too old and too odd to be drunk with, by far;
|
| So he glides to the end where the lunch baskets are,
|
| And they say that he tipples alone.
|
| Then I opened the door, and the old man passed out,
|
| With his short, shuffling step and bowed head;
|
| And I sighed; |
| for I felt, as I turned me about,
|
| An odd sense of respect, born of whisky no doubt,
|
| For a life that was fifty years dead.
|
| For a life that was fifty years dead.
|
| And I thought, there are times when our memory trends
|
| Through the future, as 'twere on its own,
|
| That I, out-of-date ere my pilgrimage ends,
|
| In a new-fashioned bar to dead loves and dead friends
|
| Might drink, like the old man, alone.
|
| Might drink, like the old man, alone. |