take long to know him, and before the month had flown My friend had stolen my darling, and I was left alone. And, ere a year of misery had passed above my head. The jewel I had treasured so had tarnished, and was dead. “That's why I took to drink, boys. Why, I never saw you smile, I thought you'd be amused, and laughing all the while. Why, what's the matter friend? There's a teardrop in your eye. Come, laugh like me; 'tis only babes and women that should cry. “Say boys, if you give me just another whiskey, I'll be glad, And I'll draw right here a picture, of the face that drove me mad. Give me that piece of chalk with which you mark the baseball score — And you shall see the lovely Madeline upon the barroom floor. Another drink, and with chalk in hand, the vagabond began, To sketch a face that well might buy the soul of any man. Then, as he placed another lock upon that shapely head, With a fearful shriek, he leaped and fell across the picture — dead! Adaptations and cultural legacy Keystone Studios used the poem as the basis for the 1914 short film The Face on the Barroom Floor starring Charles Chaplin. In the 1941 film Louisiana Purchase, Bob Hope conducts a Senate filibuster which ends with his reading the entire poem while drawing a picture on the floor. In Mad #10 (April 1954), the poem was illustrated by Jack Davis and Basil Wolverton, the latter doing a face that is kin to his "Lena the Hyena" . The poem was put to song by country music stars Tex Ritter for his 1959 Blood on the Saddle album and Hank Snow on his Tales of the Yukon album (1968). The poem was the inspiration for The Face on the Barroom Floor painting by Herndon Davis in the Teller House Bar in Central City, Colorado, and that painting inspired a chamber opera by Henry Mollicone. The title is mentioned in the lyrics of the Paul Francis Webster's song "It's Harry I'm Planning to Marry" (from the 1953 Warner Bros. musical Calamity Jane), despite the fact that it is set in Deadwood, 1876, which actually predates the poem by some 11 years. The song is delivered by the character Katie Brown (Allyn McLerie), who sings: He's the one that I truly