JIM
If you go to the lake
An’ you follow the road
As it turns to the west
Of the mill
Till you come to a stake
A surveyor has throwed
Like a knife in the breast
Of the hill,
An’ you follow the track
Till you come to a blaze
By the side of the same
In a limb,
You will light on the shack,
In the timber a ways,
Of a party whose name
It is Jim.
In a day that is flown,
’Mid the great an’ the grand,
In a time when his hair
Wasn’t gray,
He was commonly known
By a fancier brand
In a city back there,
So they say.
But it’s Jim, only Jim,
Is the name thet he gives,
When you happen to bring
Up the same;
It is plenty fer him
In the woods where he lives,
Fer the man is the thing,
Not the name.
By the gleam of his eye
Thet is steady an’ clear,
By the way he will look
At you square,
You will know thet they lie
Who would make it appear
He was maybe a crook
Over there.
In the church I have stood—
Heard of preachin’ a lot
Thet I never could much
Understand;
An’ yet never the good
From a sermon I got
Thet I got from a clutch
Of his hand.
I have half an idee
Thet, if back you could turn
To the start of the trail
Fer a spell,
Thet a woman you’d see,
Thet a lot you would learn—
Thet the regaler tale
It would tell
Of a fellah too fond,
Of a woman too weak,
Of another who came
To her door—
Then an endless beyond,
Lips thet never must speak,
An’ a man but a name
Evermore.
If you go to the town
An’ you follow the street,
By the glitter an’ glow
Of the light,
To a mansion of brown
Where the music is sweet
An’ the lute whispers low
To the night,
In the dark of a room
At the end of a hall,
Where the visions of old
Flutter in,
There she sets in the gloom,
She, the Cause of it all,
In the midst of her gold
An’ her sin.
If you go to the lake
An’ you follow the road
As it turns to the west
Of the mill
Till you come to a stake
A surveyor has throwed
Like a knife in the breast
Of the hill,
An’ you follow the track
Till you come to a blaze
By the side of the same
In a limb,
You will light on the shack,
In the timber a ways,
Of a party whose name
It is Jim.