To a Comrade Sped by Sheila Kaye-Smith

Name: To a Comrade Sped
Author: Sheila Kaye-Smith

A ballad narrator addresses a hanged highwayman named Billy, taunting his corpse with mock astonishment at his fate. The speaker mocks Billy for dangling on the gallows rope like a dog on a string, asking how it felt to kick and struggle, heels dancing in the air, as the sweat of dying soaked him while he strangled on the "three-legged mare." The narrator insists Billy must have kicked and struggled, and derides his fixed grin as unbecoming and unpleasant to look upon. The speaker imagines that Dolly would refuse to kiss Billy's cheek now, swollen dark with burst veins, and that pretty Bab would shriek and flinch at the scars across his back — wounds he earned in gaol before he was made to "gambol on the crap" (the gallows), when the Sheriff, doing his duty, ordered him both rope and strap. The narrator recalls Billy's former career as a highwayman who held the roads in trembling fear, his face blackened, commanding travelers to "tip the steven" (hand over money) and not be slack about it. Women ("blowens") screamed and gentlemen ("gemmen") cursed him, but he cowed them all with his pistol ("pop"). Now, the speaker notes with grim irony, the hemp rope has finally burst him before he could reap the full "nutty" harvest of his criminal exploits. The poem closes with the narrator repeating the opening mockery — calling Billy a fool who never expected this end, now bowled out, trussed up, stark, and dead, a cracked rogue ("ruffler crack") who has been caught fairly and finally, struck down on the gallows.

By Sheila Kaye-Smith · First published 1914 · Genre: Narrative Poetry, Ballad, Crime Fiction · 346 words

First lines

Oh you fool, you! Who'd have thought it! / Dangling like a dog on string. / That poor spice, you've dearly bought it -- / Lad, how does it feel to swing?

Did you kick when the hemp choked you, / And your heels danced in the air, / And the sweat of dying soaked you, / Struggling on the three-legged mare?

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To a Comrade Sped is listed on Textopian as a poem by Sheila Kaye-Smith, dated 1914 CE.

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Work type: Poem
Author: Sheila Kaye-Smith
Date: 1914 CE
Language: English
Genres: Narrative Poetry, Ballad, Crime Fiction, Dark Literature, Historical Poetry
Length: 346 words
Structure: 1 section, 8 paragraphs
Reading fit: Very Easy (5th Grade or below)

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Genres

Narrative Poetry — The poem tells a coherent story of a highwayman's execution with clear narrative progression, structured as a dramatic address documenting the criminal's fate from life to death.
Ballad — The work employs traditional ballad conventions including rhymed verse, a folk narrative about crime and capital punishment, archaic language, and repetitive structure characteristic of oral tradition.
Crime Fiction — The central subject is a highwayman's criminal activities (holding roads at gunpoint, robbery) and ultimate legal consequence (execution), with crime dominating the thematic core.
Dark Literature — The poem features graphic imagery of death and bodily horror including execution by hanging, corpses with swollen veins, whipping scars, and the physical brutality of the gallows.