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The Criminal

Topics: classic

Here is a tale for all who wish to listen:     There was a thief who, in his cut-throat quarter,     Was hailed as chief; he had a way of barter,     Persuasion, masked, behind a weapon's glisten,     That made it cockrow with each good man's riches.     At last he joined the Brotherhood of Murder,     And rose in his profession; lived a herder     Of crime in some dark tavern of the ditches.     There was a war. He went. Became a gunner.     And slew, as soldiers should, his many a hundred,     In authorized and most professional manner.     Here he advanced again. Was starred a oner.     Was captained, pensioned, and nobody wondered;     And lived and died respectable as a tanner.

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"Here is a tale for all who wish to listen:..."

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"The Text is taken from Percy's Reliques (1765), vol. i. p. 71, 'given from two MS. copies, transmitted from Scotland.' Herd had a very similar bal"

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