Skip to content
Linespedia

The Gipsy Girl

Topics: classic

'Come, try your skill, kind gentlemen,     A penny for three tries!'     Some threw and lost, some threw and won     A ten-a-penny prize.     She was a tawny gipsy girl,     A girl of twenty years,     I liked her for the lumps of gold     That jingled from her ears;     I liked the flaring yellow scarf     Bound loose about her throat,     I liked her showy purple gown     And flashy velvet coat.     A man came up, too loose of tongue,     And said no good to her;     She did not blush as Saxons do,     Or turn upon the cur;     She fawned and whined 'Sweet gentleman,     A penny for three tries!'      - But oh, the den of wild things in     The darkness of her eyes!

AI analysis available. Enable JavaScript to interact.

About this line

"'Come, try your skill, kind gentlemen,..."

"The Gipsy Girl" is a quintessential example of Ralph Hodgson's signature style... ### Why We Love This Line At Linespedia, we believe that poetry is the ultimate sanctuary for the soul...

Classified Tags

Related lines

"See an old unhappy bull,     Sick in soul and body both,     Slouching in the undergrowth     Of the forest beautiful,     Banished from the h"

"I climbed a hill as light fell short,     And rooks came home in scramble sort,     And filled the trees and flapped and fought     And sang th"

"If you could bring her glories back!     You gentle sirs who sift the dust     And burrow in the mould and must     Of Babylon for bric-a-brac;"

"Here morning in the ploughman's songs is met     Ere yet one footstep shows in all the sky,     And twilight in the east, a doubt as yet,     S"

"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"

Continue Reading

"See an old unhappy bull,     Sick in soul and body..."

Weekly Poetic Insight

Join our literary Sanctuary

Get the most inspiring lines, poetic analysis, and secret shayaris delivered to your inbox every Sunday.