- A Smuggler's Song Rudyard Kipling Analysis Line By Line
- If Poem By Rudyard Kipling Settings
- A Smugglers Song Rudyard Kipling Analysis Short Story
- Rudyard Kipling's Books
A Smuggler's Song Poem by Rudyard Kipling If you wake at midnight, and hear a horse's feet, Don't go drawing back the blind, or looking in the street. A Smuggler's Song If you wake at midnight, and hear a horse's feet, Don't go drawing back the blind, or looking in the street; Them that ask no questions isn't told a lie.
This extract from the poem, A Smugglers Song, by Rudyard Kipling greets you in the car park of one of the hotels in Rye, The Mermaid Inn. The poem hints of the Inn’s sketchy past, giving you a clue to its clientelle of yesteryear. Mar 12, 2018 A Smuggler's Song by Rudyard Kipling IF you wake at midnight, and hear a horse's feet, Don't go drawing back the blind, or looking in the street. Them that ask no questions isn't told a lie.
>Peter Bellamy >Songs >A Smuggler's Song
[ Roud - ; Henry H494 ; Ballad Index HHH494n ; words Rudyard Kipling, music Peter Bellamy / Tim Laycock]
A Smuggler's Song is a poem from Rudyard Kipling's bookPuck of Pook's Hill.Peter and Anthea Bellamy and Chris Birchsang it in 1972 on Bellamy's second album of songs set to Kipling's poems,Merlin's Isle of Gramarye.He commented in the album's sleeve notes:
A Smuggler's Song is one of Kipling's best loved poems. Itpresents a somewhat romantic view of the cut-throat Sussex smugglers of theEighteenth Century. The melody is derived from that ofThe White Cockade,a song which survives in the repertoire of a family in a village in whichKipling himself lived for a period: the Copper family of Rottingdean, Sussex.The harmonies were arranged by Chris Birch.
Isla St Clair sang Smuggler's Songin 1981 in the BBC television series and on the accompanying album,The Song and the Story.
John Roberts and Tony Barrand sang A Smuggler's Songas the title-giving track of their 1992 CDA Present from the Gentlemen,referring in their liner notes to Peter Bellamy.
The New Scorpion Band sang A Smuggler's Songin 2004 on their CDThe Downfall of Pears.They noted:
A new setting by Tim [Laycock] of Rudyard Kipling's famous poem fromPuck of Pook's Hill.There are surprisingly few traditional songs about smuggling, given theremarkable amount of it which evidently went on along England's south coastduring the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. We have recently beencollecting smuggling stories on our travels, and are particularly grateful tothe villagers of Shipton Gorge, Dorset for their tales of the infamousIsaac Gulliver and his ghostly appearances at the pub window.
Jess and Richard Arrowsmith sang Smuggler's Songin 2010 on their CD of (mostly) nursery songs,Off We Go!,in 2011 on Pecsaetan Morris's CDAt One With the Bells,and in 2012 on their CDCustoms & Exercise.
Jon Boden sang Smuggler's Songas the 15 January 2011 entry of his projectA Folk Song a Day.
Martha Tilston sang her own song Shipwreckers, with a chorus borrowed from A Smuggler's Song, in 2014 on her CDThe Sea.
Mawkin sang A Smuggler's Songon their 2018 albumDown Among the Dead Men.They noted:
A Rudyard Kipling poem set to music by Peter Bellamy.Dave [Delarre] fell in love with this one as it's about those unsuspectingcharacters in a village that get up to no good. It's always the quiet onesthat you have to be wary of!
Lyrics
Rudyard Kipling's A Smuggler's Song
A Smuggler's Song Rudyard Kipling Analysis Line By Line
If you wake at midnight, and hear a horse's feet,
Don't go drawing back the blind, or looking in the street,
Them that asks no questions they isn't told a lie.
Watch the wall, my darling, while the Gentlemen go by!
Five-and-twenty ponies, trotting through the dark—
With brandy for the Parson and 'baccy for the Clerk.
Laces for a lady and letters for a spy,
And watch the wall, my darling, while the Gentlemen go by!
Running round the woodlump if you chance to find
Little barrels, roped and tarred, all full of brandy-wine;
Don't you shout to come and look, nor use 'em for your play;
Put the brushwood back again,—and they'll be gone next day!
If Poem By Rudyard Kipling Settings
If you see the stable-door setting open wide;
If you see a tired horse lying down inside;
If your mother mends a coat cut about and tore;
If the lining's wet and warm—don't you ask no more!
A Smugglers Song Rudyard Kipling Analysis Short Story
If you meet King George's men, dressed in blue and red,
You be careful what you say, and mindful what is said.
If they call you “pretty maid”, and chuck you 'neath the chin,
Don't you tell where no one is, nor yet where no one's been!
Knocks and footsteps round the house—whistles after dark—
You've no call for running out until the house-dogs bark.
Trusty's here, and Pincher's here, and see how dumb they lie—
They don't fret to follow when the Gentlemen go by!
If you do as you've been told, likely there's a chance
You'll be give a dainty doll, all the way from France,
With a cap of Valenciennes, and a velvet hood—
A present from the Gentlemen, along o' being good!
Rudyard Kipling's Books
Five-and-twenty ponies, trotting through the dark—
Brandy for the Parson, 'baccy for the Clerk.
Them that asks no questions isn't told a lie—
So watch the wall, my darling, while the Gentlemen go by!