A Badge of Broken Beauty

Before the bawdy houses all went broke, Contented cowboys, flush with cash, would go. Fernando with his friends and other folk Perused each painted pretty there on show. These glitter-gloved young ladies lounged in style; They'd wait and wonder who would be the one To leave his liquor for a little while And fork a fiver over for some fun. They were the wanton women of the west Who proffered pleasure proudly for a price. Big hearts are often broken in the best Who lose at love like gamblers lose at dice. Just tin-pan ladies toiling tough till dawn With wages weak for weary work each night. They soon would wake to see their youth was gone; Their better life for burdens born took flight. The cowpoke cattle drives brought towns new breath But soon the railroad ripped the range in two As cattle cars crushed cattle drives to death And cattle drivin' cowpokes soon were through. The pretty painted ladies proved no use To lazy little towns now cast astray. Love's labor flees when life is lived too loose, Dependent on a cowboy's poke each day. So now that time is told as tales of old Where cowboy campfires burnt away the chill When weather's whimsy whipped up winds so cold They'd cut right through and break a cowboy's will. Some words at last for ladies who sold love Then disappeared like dust of early dawn. They faded like the glitter on their glove, A badge of broken beauty, dead and gone.