Smugglers Pie Poem by David Lewis Paget

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