Musing On The Treatment By The Courts Of Those Arrested During The Recent Disturbances...

[sandyRoe]

...these few lines came to mind.

Last night among his fellow roughs,

He tested, quaffed and swore.

A drunken young lad on the dole

Who never look'd before.

Today beneath the judge's frown he stands in Tommees place.

Ambassador from council slum 

And best of all his race.

Poor, reckless, rude, low-born, untaught 

Bewildered and alone,

A heart with English instinct fraught,

He yet can call his own.

I think he and his fellow 'offenders' will do their porridge with stoic good humour. 

What say you?

 

[sandyRoe]

Jested, not tested on line 4.

[sandyRoe]

I'm surprised that nobody has commented, even if it was only to say I'm no poet.

[jourdain2]

It's noi that bad actually - I've heard (and read) worse so perhaps I'm over-tolerant. No I'm not (on re-reading), it draws a vivid picture.  You aren't expecting the reader to agree with all the sentiments are you?

[jourdain2]

^^ 'Not' not 'noi'.

[sandyRoe]

I can't claim it as my own.  Sir Frances Hastings Doyle wrote the original, A private of the Buffs, in the 19th Century.

I tweaked it a bit.

[Peter Pedant]

Hi Sandy, I have protested  about the modding  of the cow  problem in my usual forthright  terms.

It cannot beSir Franky making good ( Fisher was the first midshipman (RN not army) to  rise to Admiral. - so it must be about a Tommy

and it is  clearly about being drunk  and  disorderly at what were then called Police Courts

( and then he joins up and turns his life around)

parallel breaks ( and I love tortured parallel as you know) - as this was riot, Cardigan ( 1856 - that one, charge of the Light Brigade) - "the tommy joins a regiment in order to fornicate". - - oops oblique parallel to cows - 

and finally (3) - you cant now join up  and change your life until your record is clean for 2 y

Three good reasons to delete this  !