The poem
In youth I gnawed life's bitter rind And shared the rugged lot Of fellows rude and unrefined, Frustrated and forgot; And now alas! it is too late My sorry ways to mend, So sadly I accept my fate, A Roughneck to the end.
Profanity is in my voice And slag is in my rhyme, For I have mucked with men who curse And grovel in the grime; My fingers were not formed, I fear, To frame a pretty pen, So please forgive me if I veer From Virtue now and then.
For I would be the living voice, Though raucous is its tone, Of men who rarely may rejoice, Yet barely ever moan: The rovers of the raw-ribbed lands, The lads of lowly worth, The scallywags with scaley hands Who weld the ends of earth.