she was once a true love of mine but i left her to work in an old mine where i sang my darling clementine like a demented and forgetful libertine but life always pays you back in kind when i came back with those trinkets she was gone and i was alone in my old age love had not waited for this poor thing in wrinkles chasing time on dimming eyes and dulled memory too many years too late for the girl who had tried to wait