Classic Poem

He wears no armour, he bears no crest,
No high hopes swell in his manly breast;
He is not plighted to ladye fair
(Though Liz of the factory may be there);
He hath not given his knightly word,
Nor taken an oath on his knightly sword.
No princelings ride in his glittering train,
For he's Ginger Smith of the Red Rock Lane.

He is not a pirate of days gone by,
Who holds his crew with an eagle eye;
He is no smuggler of lace and rum —
Though he might have had dealings in opium.
No loyalist, rebel, or bandit, he;
Nor patriot fighting for Liberty.
Yet he meets his band when the shops are shut,
And they've taken an oath by the Argyle Cut.

No oath that was sworn by the men of old,
When they went in search of the Inca's gold,
Was ever so strong or could bind so fast,
Or ever so surely and grimly passed
As the oath of revenge ('tis a theme well worn)
That Ginger Smith and his push have sworn,
And the track he'll follow — though pals may fail,
And it leads him thrice through the walls of gaol.

For his Old 'Un's pension was stopped last week,
Because of the tale of a bloomin' sneak,
And his moll was stole by the bloomin' same,
And his pal was smashed in the bloomin' game —
And the bloomin' crawler, a pimp is he,
With the law behind him and secrecy,
But I'd rather each D. in the cities three
Than Ginger, with reason, was after me.