Classic Poem

Mebbe you've heard it's the Rommany way
To say that religion is lies;
But I know it's all true what the parsons say,
For I saw the Devil myself one day,
With these 'ere blessed eyes.

I was campin' out on a field one night,
But I couldn't sleep a wink;
For I suddenly got a sort of a fright,
And I fancied the donkey warn't all right, —
Now 'twas prophecy, that, I think.

Then I says, " I'll take a look around, "
So out in the air I went;
And there in the dim half-light I found
That the donkey was standin' safe and sound,
A-grazin' outside the tent.

" Come hup! " I says, says I, to the moke,
For him and me was friends;
An' he allus knew me when I spoke,
An' he used to canter up and poke
His nose into my hands.

But this 'ere time, and I needn't say
That I thought it rather rum,
Though he stood as still as a lump of clay,
Yet the furder he seemed to get away
The nigher I tried to come.

At last he wanished out of sight,
And I knew, when day came round,
That the donkey I'd followed all through the night
Was the Devil himself, — for when 'twas light
I saw my own in the pound.

It's a wrong idea most folks have got,
That Rommany chaps like me
Haven't any dear God to look after the lot;
For the Devil he tempts us quite as hot
As any one else, you see.