The Days of Pearly Spencer

A tenement, a dirty street
 Walked and worn by shoeless feet
 Inside it's long and so complete
 Watched by a shivering sun
 Old eyes in a small child's face
 Watching as the shadows race
 Through walls and cracks and leave no trace
 And daylight's brightness shuns
 The days of Pearly Spencer
 The race is almost run
 Nose pressed hard on frosted glass
 Gazing as the swollen mass
 On concrete fields where grows no grass
 Iron trees smother the air
 But withering they stand and stare
 Through eyes that neither know nor care
 Where the grass has gone
 The days of Pearly Spencer
 The race is almost run
 Pearly where's your milk white skin
 What's that stubble on your chin
 It's buried in the rot-gut gin
 You played and lost not won
 You played a house that can't be beat
 Now look your head's bowed in defeat
 You walked too far along the street
 Where only rats can run
 The days of Pearly Spencer
 The race is almost run
 The days of Pearly Spencer
 The race is almost run
 The race is almost run
 A tenement, a dirty street
 Remember worn and shoeless feet
 Remember how you stood to beat
 The way your life had gone
 So Pearly don't you shed more tears
 For those best forgotten years
 Those tenements are memories
 Of where you've risen from
 The days of Pearly Spencer
 The race is almost won