Smugglers Pie
The body of smuggler Robert Long
Hung by the road in chains,
His flesh was mouldering from his bones
Washed clean by the Cornish rains,
The crows had taken his sorry eyes,
His wife, the gold from his teeth,
But some kind soul from near Mousehole
Had left at his feet, a wreath!
The Excise men ranged over the cliffs,
The Revenue men below,
And Customs Officers manned the cutters
That intercepted the flow,
They boarded the bold East Indiamen
Who sold their goods tax free,
And many a thief has come to grief
When the waves tipped them into the sea!
The goods that lay in the Cornish coves
Tobacco, brandy and rum,
Were smuggled up onto Bodmin Moor
And sold for a tidy sum,
The coast was riddled with tunnels, caves,
And one led into a church,
The spirits that lay in the belfry there
Were hidden away from the search!
Battling Bill at the Halfway House
Long lightened the nation's purse,
He'd run his brandy up to the Inn
Using a horse-drawn hearse,
Surprised one day by the Revenue
They shot poor Bill through the neck,
But dead, his hand whipped the horses' still
And the hearse ran away from the wreck.
The hearse, it rattled Polperro streets,
Rolled over the cobblestones,
With Bill stuck firm to the riding seat
Not ready to make old bones,
He drove the length of the shopping street
And straight down onto the quay,
Then toppled into the harbour there,
But his ghost came back from the sea!
They smuggled silk, they smuggled wine,
They smuggled bags of tea,
Whatever the King put taxes on
The Cornish smuggled for free,
A convict ship to Australia
Was the worst that most of them got,
Apart from the likes of Robert Long
As he hung in his chains, to rot!
17 July 2012
poem by David Lewis Paget
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Related quotes
Tax Avoidance Strategy
Tonight the tide is in full flood.
The moon provides sufficient light.
For us to unload smuggled goods.
Which must be done before daylight.
The excise men are fat too wise.
To brave the dangers of the night
To try and take us by surprise.
They much prefer the broad daylight.
We risk our life and liberty.
Just as our forbears used to do.
Braving the perils of the sea
Importing luxuries for you.
Although the government will try.
The will not stop free enterprise.
The people want what we supply.
And are prepared to close their eyes.
To pack horses moving at night.
That's how we move our contraband.
All safely stored before daylight
In hiding places well in land.
The excise men can poke and pry.
Ask questions to their hearts content.
But local customs still apply.
Nobody helps the government.
We're local men and we are free.
The Magistrates are local too.
And they enjoy their French brandy.
Free from the taxes which are due.
So raise your glass and drink a toast.
To honest Cornish sailor men.
Who land their cargoes on the coast.
Then fill your empty glass again.
And curse the men in parliament.
Who pass laws which they can't enforce.
Against our will without consent.
No free man will ever endorse.
Where there's demand there'll be supply.
That is a universal law.
With which all traders must comply.
This law will last for evermore.
It always has and always will.
A law no government can change
By passing yet another bill.
In their attempts to re arrange.
What taxes should be paid by those.
Importing goods from overseas.
They have to try I must suppose
Which does not mean that I agree.
poem by Ivor Or Ivor.e Hogg
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Tema
Awful folly,
I was smuggled through the red sea!
On the night of the great deliverance,
But many have eyes and they can still not see.
Frantically speaking,
My name is Tema;
But the colour of my love speaks by itself.
Love is like the movement of the sun and the moon,
But the sparrows are twittering and the doves are cooing;
For i was smuggled through the Red Sea to meet your love,
And like the wind of your muse that led me on.
poem by Edward Kofi Louis
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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I have never smuggled anything in my life. Why, then, do I feel an uneasy sense of guilt on approaching a customs barrier?
quote by John Steinbeck
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Those were the Days
The horse drawn hearse impresses me
Drawn by a pair of well matched blacks.
Moves slowly onward sedately.
With an attendant at the back.
The coachman in dark livery.
A black crepe bow adorns his hat
Controls his horses easily
There can be little doubt of that.
It is a sight we rarely see.
In the busy world of today.
A horse drawn hearse traditionally.
Was seen to be the only way.
To embark on your last journey
To the local cemetery.
Tuesday,17 April 2012.
poem by Ivor Or Ivor.e Hogg
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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I was deposed in association with a case involving the Golden Venture, a ship which smuggled Chinese aliens into the United States about eight or nine ago.
quote by Rand Beers
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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As a daughter grows up she is like smuggled salt.
Midwinter
A blue light
radiates from my clothing.
Midwinter.
Clattering tambourines of ice.
I close my eyes.
There is a silent world
there is a crack
where the dead
are smuggled across the border.
poem by Tomas Transtromer from The Sorrow Gondola
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Terrorists have already attacked our Nation once. There is every reason to believe that they will try again - possibly with a weapon of mass destruction; a weapon that could be smuggled into our ports.
quote by Mike Fitzpatrick
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Postcard
(clarke / hicks / nash)
When sands close at hand
And the sea is touching me,
I feel much happier
Than Ive ever felt. and a long time goes by
And Im floating in the sky.
And I wish you could be,
Wish you could be here.
And if youre free, follow me
Throw a pebble in my sea.
The sun will wrap you up
In a pool of gold, and lights in the night
In the night reaching neon waves of sight.
But
I wish you could be,
Wish you could be,
Wish you could be here.
The sun, the sand, the sea are waiting
On the corner. take a trip out here.
Hustle, bustle, shove and fuss
Will greet you if you stay there.
Im without a care.
Fresh fruit and sea fish,
Are in abundance here.
But they dont allow
The natives at your door
Selling booze
Smuggled from another shore.
And
Chorus
Verse 3
Verse 4
Chorus
Postcard, postcard, postcard.
song performed by by Hollies
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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It Was Not Easy
The borders were closed and,
I was smuggled out to breath my freedom! !
But, it was not easy.
poem by Edward Kofi Louis
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I can tell you, dearest friend, that if it became known how much friendship, love and a world of human and spiritual references I have smuggled into these three movements, the adherents of programme music - should there be any left - would go mad with joy.
quote by Alban Berg
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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There are a few Chinese smuggled in over the borders of British Columbia on the north and Mexico on the south.
quote by Denis Kearney
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The public has been sold a bill of goods about the free market being a panacea for mankind.
quote by Tom Scholz
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Al Cobdogla's Hearse
The mood in the town of Warramine
Was grim, and getting worse,
For stuck on the town's old hump-back bridge
Was Al Cobdogla's hearse,
The brakes had failed and the motor quit
And the footplates wedged each side,
The springs had sprung, and the body hung
On Emily's final ride!
The coffin lodged in the back was black,
As black as Emily's sin,
There wasn't a man in the great outback
That hadn't been out and in,
For Emily Gray was more than gay
In the old sense of the word,
She only charged a dollar a spin
Out there in the cattle yard.
For Emily was an outdoor girl
She couldn't abide inside,
She liked the sun on her naked legs
And a good bit more beside,
She'd run stark naked under the trees
When the wattle began to bloom,
And wives would lock their men in the bar
On a Saturday afternoon.
‘The blatant hussy, ' - ‘The brazen bitch! '
The women would often say,
The men would mutter and dropp their heads,
‘It's only Emily Gray! '
They found her lying without a stitch,
Or that's what somebody said,
And beat her bloody with candlesticks,
So now, poor Emily's dead!
She lay in the coffin, wedged in tight,
As tight as the hearse on the bridge,
The men got worried and pulled her out
And stuck her in somebody's fridge!
‘She won't last long in the heat out here,
It's over a hundred today, '
It seemed that the women of Warramine
Were stuck with Emily Gray!
They pushed and heaved, pummelled and thrust
But nothing could budge that hearse,
The only bridge into Warramine
Was blocked, for better or worse,
The farmers couldn't get into the pub,
The townsfolk, locked in the town,
While Emily Gray, quite naked lay
With the men, all milling around.
They built a fabulous highway bridge,
Four lanes, both in and out,
While Al Cobdogla's ancient hearse
Is part of the tourist route,
And Emily went to her final rest
To the cheers of the men, and cursed,
But Warramine boasts its ‘Emily Bridge'
Thanks to Cobdogla's hearse!
poem by David Lewis Paget
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Wallabi Joe
The saddle was hung on the stockyard rail,
And the poor old horse stood whisking his tail,
For there never was seen such a regular screw
As Wallabi Joe, of Bunnagaroo;
Whilst the shearers all said, as they say, of course,
That Wallabi Joe's a fine lump of a horse;
But the stockmen said, as they laughed aside,
He'd barely do for a Sunday's ride.
O—oh! poor Wallabi Joe.
"I'm weary of galloping now," he cried,
"I wish I were killed for my hide, my hide;
For my eyes are dim, and my back is sore,
And I feel that my legs won't stand much more."
Now stockman Bill, who took care of his nag,
Put under the saddle a soojee bag,
And off he rode with a whip in his hand
To look for a mob of the R.J. brand.
Now stockman Bill camped out that night,
And he hobbled his horse in a sheltered bight;
Next day of old Joe he found not a track,
So he had to trudge home with his swag on his back.
He searched up and down every gully he knew,
But he found not a hair of his poor old screw,
And the stockmen all said as they laughed at his woe,
"Would you sell us the chance of old Wallabi Joe."
Now as years sped by, and as Bill grew old,
It came into his head to go poking for gold;
So away he went with a spade in his fist,
To hunt for a nugget among the schist.
One day as a gully he chanced to cross,
He came on the bones of his poor old horse;
The hobbles being jammed in a root below
Had occasioned the death of poor Wallabi Joe.
poem by Andrew Barton Paterson
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Man And Bottle
Just an empty brandy bottle by the door
An empty bottle standing on the floor
Last week 'twas worth a carpenter's day's pay
But now it isn't worth taking away.
Last week 'twas full of brandy to the top
But in it now there's not a single drop
Just like a candy box without the candy
What value a brandy bottle without brandy?
The man who drank the brandy he is dead
Like all dead men a pine box is his bed
He rests in peace where all dead people lay
Six foot under graveyard earth and clay.
He drank the brandy and then drove his car
But alas the poor man did not travel far
His car left the road and crashed against a tree
And with his life he paid for gluttony.
Next time you're in a bar and have to drive a car, do think
Hard liquor is a thing you ought not drink
Spare a thought for the poor man who drank the brandy
And ask the publican for a beer shandy.
poem by Francis Duggan
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I smuggled the camera, it was no problem to smuggle the camera there. And I took 60 photos, two films, during the time when there was no one in the control room, in the building.
quote by Mordechai Vanunu
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Bill of the Ages
He shall live to the end of this mad old world, he has lived since the world began,
He never has done any good for himself, but was good to every man.
He never has done any good for himself, and I’m sure that he never will,
He drinks and he swears and he fights at times, and his name is mostly Bill.
He carried a freezing mate to his cave, and nursed him, for all I know,
When Europe was mostly a sheet of ice, thousands of years ago.
He has stuck to many a mate since then, he is with us everywhere still
(He loves and gambles when he is young, and the girls stick up for Bill.)
He has rowed to a wreck, when the lifeboat failed, with Jim in a crazy boat;
He has given his lifebelt many a time, and sunk that another might float.
He has ‘stood ’em off’ while others escaped, when the niggers rushed from the hill,
And rescue parties who came too late have found what was left of Bill.
He has thirsted on deserts that others might drink, he has given lest others should lack,
He has staggered half-blinded through fire or drought with a sick man on his back.
He is first to the rescue in tunnel or shaft, from Newcastle to Broken Hill,
When the water breaks in or the fire breaks out, Oh! a leader of men is Bill.
No humane societies’ medals he wears for the fearful deaths he braved;
He seems ashamed of the good he did, and ashamed of the lives he saved.
If you chance to know of a noble deed he has done, you had best keep still;
If you chance to know of a kindly act, you mustn’t let on to Bill.
He is fierce at a wrong, he is firm in right, he is kind to the weak and mild;
He will slave all day and sit up all night by the side of a neighbour’s child.
For a woman in trouble he’d lay down his life, nor think as another man will;
He’s a man all through, but no other man’s wife has ever been worse for Bill.
He is good for the noblest sacrifice, he can do what few other men can;
He can break his heart that the girl he loves may marry a better man.
There’s many a mother and wife to-night whose heart and whose eyes will fill
When she thinks of the days of the long ago when she well might have stuck to Bill.
Maybe he’s in trouble or hard up now, and travelling far for work,
Or fighting a dead past down to-night in a lone camp west of Bourke.
When he’s happy and flush, take your sorrow to him and borrow as much as you will;
But when he’s in trouble or stony-broke, you never will hear from Bill.
And when, because of its million sins, this earth is cracked like a shell,
He will stand by a mate at the Judgment Seat!—and comfort him down in—Well,
I haven’t much sentiment left, but let the cynic sneer as he will;
Perhaps God will fix up the world again for the sake of the likes of Bill.
poem by Henry Lawson
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The Ballad of Old Clonbroney
The Ballad of Old Clonbroney
One night dark walking along
A lane onto its end,
A neighbour walked up to a house
To call upon a friend.
The neighbour was new, his friends wife too
Had arrived not long ago,
And friendship new as neighbours do
They called on one another each other to know.
And as he approached the house,
He wondered at how strange shadows moves,
It looked as if it were a hearse,
And all of a sudden a sound of hooves,
And a wall through at terrific speed,
Driven by a horseman with no head,
A hearse up through the feilds fleed
To Old Clonbroney with its dead.
Our hero stood there shaking,
Wondered if he imaged was what he had seen,
When the woman opened the door to the house,
Asked where the horses had been?
He raced into the house so fast,
Slammed behind him the door,
Told how the hearse before him passed,
And where it came from before...
That it went up to Old Clonbroney,
After driving through a wall,
But it was not real: twas but a ghost,
For the wall was not damaged at all.
And drinking whiskey strong his nerves setlled down,
Though still great in him was fear,
Though you may mock and you may frown,
You too would shake if the headless horseman did appear...
And in time the husband returned,
A miller he was by trade,
He came to see his wife terrified,
And his neighbour, a man strong, afraid,
They told him of the horseman,
Of the hearse, that the man had no head,
He srugged his shoulder with a sigh,
Declared one of the neighbours dead.
It was like the banshee,
The miller said of the apparition,
When these neighbours died, the spectre youd see,
So was local superstition,
And so all a prayer they said,
For their own and the deceased sake,
Its not told the name of who was dead,
Or if the miller and his neighbour slept or stayed that night awake!
===========================
The story of a man who met a headless horseman when calling on a neighbour after moving into the area.
Apperantly this is actually true, the miller he was calling on was an uncle of mine who lived in Clonbroney, where an old road led up to a disused cemetry, and a new road now led to the village. The old road partly made the lane to his house and mill that used to be on the side of the old road, but the road was blocked of at the rear, where both sides had grown in to form one hedgegrow that went up the fiends to the old cemetry.
The poem is to be edited later to make sure the information is correct, but this is the first draft.
poem by Tomás Ó Cárthaigh
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Corny Bill
His old clay pipe stuck in his mouth,
His hat pushed from his brow,
His dress best fitted for the South --
I think I see him now;
And when the city streets are still,
And sleep upon me comes,
I often dream that me an' Bill
Are humpin' of our drums.
I mind the time when first I came
A stranger to the land;
And I was stumped, an' sick, an' lame
When Bill took me in hand.
Old Bill was what a chap would call
A friend in poverty,
And he was very kind to all,
And very good to me.
We'd camp beneath the lonely trees
And sit beside the blaze,
A-nursin' of our wearied knees,
A-smokin' of our clays.
Or when we'd journeyed damp an' far,
An' clouds were in the skies,
We'd camp in some old shanty bar,
And sit a-tellin' lies.
Though time had writ upon his brow
And rubbed away his curls,
He always was -- an' may be now --
A favourite with the girls;
I've heard bush-wimmin scream an' squall --
I've see'd 'em laugh until
They could not do their work at all,
Because of Corny Bill.
He was the jolliest old pup
As ever you did see,
And often at some bush kick-up
They'd make old Bill M.C.
He'd make them dance and sing all night,
He'd make the music hum,
But he'd be gone at mornin' light
A-humpin' of his drum.
Though joys of which the poet rhymes
Was not for Bill an' me,
I think we had some good old times
Out on the wallaby.
I took a wife and left off rum,
An' camped beneath a roof;
But Bill preferred to hump his drum
A-paddin' of the hoof.
The lazy, idle loafers what
In toney houses camp
Would call old Bill a drunken sot,
A loafer, or a tramp;
But if the dead should ever dance --
As poets say they will --
I think I'd rather take my chance
Along of Corny Bill.
His long life's-day is nearly o'er,
Its shades begin to fall;
He soon must mount his bluey for
The last long tramp of all;
I trust that when, in bush an' town,
He's lived and learnt his fill,
They'll let the golden slip-rails down
For poor old Corny Bill.
poem by Henry Lawson
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