Drunkard's Child

I'm alone, all alone, my friends all have fled
My father's a drunkard, my mother is dead.
I'm a poor little girl, I wonder and weep
For the voice of my mother to sing me to sleep.
She sleeps on the hill, in a bed made of clay
How cold it did seem to lay mother away.
She's gone with the angels, and none do I see
So dear as the face of my mother to me.

cho: I'm a little lone girl in this cold world so wild,
God look down and pity the drunkard's lone child.
Look down and pity, Oh soon come to me
Take me to dwell with mother and Thee.

We were so happy till father drank rum;
Then aII our sorrows and troubles begun.
Mother grew paler and wept every day;
Baby and I were too hungry to pIay.
SIowIy they faded and one summer night
Found their sweet faces aIl silent and white
And with big tears sIowIy dropping I said,
"Father's a drunkard and mother is dead."

Oh, if some temperance workers could find
Poor wretched father and speak very kind,
If they could stop him from drinking, why then,
I would feel very happy again.
Is it too Iate? Men of temperance, please try,
For poor littIe Bessie will soon starve and die.
All day Iong I've been begging for bread.
Father's a drunkard and mother is dead.

From Weep Some More, Spaeth
RG