Poems (Hoffman)/Banjo Jim

by Martha Lavinia Hoffman

BANJO JIM

Old Banjo Jim is the name of him
 Of whom I have to write,
As he walks with his load, 'long a country road,
 He is almost always tight;

But wherever he goes, with his weal and woes
 His banjo always shares,
'Tis as much a scrap of the poor old chap
 As the battered hat he wears.

He is old and scarred, he is maimed and marred
 And his banjo is the same,
'Tis a part of himself never laid on the shelf
 And a part of his poor old name.

He will curse and swear, 'till the very air
 With his wicked words is blue,
Or sit on a pile of rails, with a smile,
 And play a tune for you.

He is always tight, but don't take a fright
 He's harmless, the neighbors say,
And when he swears, 'tis a part of his airs
 As much as it is to play;

Still I pity him, poor Old Banjo Jim,
 Whenever I see him go
With his rags and sin, with his tags and gin,
 Holding tight to his old banjo.

Of all beauty bereft, there must yet be left
 In his hard old soul a string
That is plastic still, to feel and thrill
 At the sound of a lovely thing.

But who comes here with a look of fear
 And a message of alarm?
A man found dead by the road 'tis said
 With a banjo under his arm.

"Got drunk," they say, and lost his way
 And stumbled into the ditch,
Who sold him the stuff, that was poison enough,
 Was it murder or accident? Which?

And does no one care, that he's lying there
 With a look so fixed and wild?
O friends, do you know, that years ago
 He was somebody's little child!

Then lay him low, where we all shall go
 Beggar and king, as well,
With his banjo pressed to his lifeless breast
 As together they fought and fell.

From my window pane, I can hear the rain
 On an old tin roof below,
And I lean to hear, for it sounds so queer,
 Like the ghost of that old banjo.

And I wonder then, what he might have been
 If some things were not, that are;
Ah! guilty saloon, 'neath the silent moon
 There are crimes you shall answer for!