Woodbine Willie
Woodbine Willie
Original Text
G. A. Studdert Kennedy, Rhymes
(London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1929): 9.
1929 (7) 3853 Cambridge University Library
1They gave me this name like their nature,
2 Compacted of laughter and tears,
3A sweet that was born of the bitter,
4 A joke that was torn from the years
5Of their travail and torture, Christ's fools,
6 Atoning my sins with their blood,
7Who grinned in their agony sharing
8 The glorious madness of God.
9Their name! Let me hear it -- the symbol
10 Of unpaid -- unpayable debt,
11For the men to whom I owed God's Peace,
12 I put off with a cigarette.
Publication Start Year
1929
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
2003
Rhyme