The Ballad of Dick Turpin
The daylight moon looked quietly down
Through the gathering dusk on London town
A smock-frocked yokel hobbled along
By Newgate, humming a country song.
Chewing a straw, he stood to stare
At the proclamation posted there:
“Three hundred guineas on Turpins head,
Trap him alive or shoot him dead;
And a hundred more for his mate, Tom King.”
He crouched like a tiger about to spring.
Then he looked up, and he looked down;
And chuckling low, like a country clown,
Dick Turpin painfully hobbled away
In quest of his inn – “The Load of Hay”...
Alone in her stall, his mare, Black Bess,
Lifted her head in mute distress;
For five strange men had entered the yard
And looked at her long, and looked at her hard.
They went out, muttering under their breath;
And then – the dusk grew still as death.
But the velvet ears of the listening mare
Lifted and twitched. They were there – still there;
Hidden and waiting; for whom? And why?
The clock struck four, a set drew nigh.
It was King! Dick Turpins’ mate.
The black mare whinnied. Too late! Too late!
They rose like shadows out of the ground
And grappled him there, without a sound.
“Throttle him – quietly – choke him dead!
Or we lose this hawk for a jay, they said.”
They wrestled and heaved, five men to one;
And a yokel entered the yard, alone;
A smock-frocked yokel, hobbling slow;
But a fight is physic as all men know.
His age dropped off, he stood upright.
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poem by Alfred Noyes
Added by Poetry Lover
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