The Ballad Of Wandering Jack Poem by Francis Duggan

He's coming back poor Wandering Jack
His hair is dirty long and black
He's been in London, Paris, Rome
And now he's on the road back home.

He's been to jail for stealing cars
And causing rows in public bars
To appease his flesh he's blacked his soul
He's lived in brothels pimped and stole.

But now he feels he's had enough
Of living tough and sleeping rough
He plans to start his life anew
And live as honest people do.

He's coming home to settle down
And try to find a job in town
And mend his reckless wayward way
And work to earn an honest pay.

He know 'twill bring his mother joy
To see again her beloved boy,
The son she raised without a dad
This only child she's ever had.

Across his weather bitten face
Lies a mark death only can erase
A scar that near cost him his life
Inflicted by a thug with a flick knife.

His father's face he never see
His mother he would not marry
Though she loved him he left her in shame
And ran off with another dame.

She could have offered for adoption her little boy
But than part with him she'd rather die
She taught him right and raised him good
And loved him as a mother should.

It's not her fault that he did fail
That he's lived wrong and been in jail
He can't blame her for bad advice
It's his own fault he had a choice.

For the past ten years he's on the road
His address is 'no fixed abode'
He's drank more than his share in the past ten year
of moonshine liquor, whiskey and beer.

But he has vowed that from this day
From all public bars he will keep away
From this day he's resolved he'll try
To pass all public houses by.

It makes him feel good to breathe his Hometown air
Some familiar faces still live there
He greet them and they say 'hello'
Yet him they do not seem to know.

It fills his old neighbours with surprise
That this stranger them does recognize
His shabby dress and old looking face
Make him a stranger now in his home place.

He left this town where he first took root
As a handsome looking fresh faced youth
Now he is back to from where he first began
A weary but a wiser man.

He walks the path to his mother's door
He knocks and hear footsteps cross the floor
The door is unlocked and opened wide
But it's not his mother that stand inside.

A red haired woman scarce twenty two
Says good day sir 'can I help you'
Does Kate O Farrell still live here?
I'm sorry sir she died last year.

The words she spoke made him feel weak
And he all but felt too shocked to speak
He thanked the lady and walked out the gate
He had come back home one year too late.

She had died whilst he was serving time
When he was in prison for crime
She died whilst the son she loved so well
Slept in his grimy prison cell.

He feels so miserable and sad
A drink, a drink is needed bad
He needs a drink to ease the blow
And soothe his great remorse and woe.

But he can't buy drink for he is broke
A homeless, penniless poor bloke
Yet he has to get money somehow
As he needs a drink quite badly now.

An elderly lady carrying a hand bag walk by
He snatches her bag and for help she cry
A policeman give him chase with gun in hand
Shouting stop, don't run, I warn you stand.

But he doesn't stop a shot ring out
And a curious crowd gather about
Poor Wandering Jack who lay there dead
With blood a streaming from his head.

He had come back home with hopes so high
To heartbreak news and then to die
Three hundred yards from the house where he was born
Twenty eight years ago on an April morn.