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Checkin' out the Winckley and what should I see?
Another guy big in local history
What's it with the Square for it seems to turn out
People who people write books about
Though I really don't want to propagate a deceit
The guy was actually born in Winckley Street
At the age of three he moved to the Square
He hung around 'till five and then he left there
You say, "Whose the guy, what's his appellation?" Francis Thompson's the
name, verse was his vocation Though not many people read his stuff now
In his heyday he made Wilde say - "WOW!"
[Chorus]
Playing in the gardens of Winckley
Francis had a pleasant time
But walking
with his mum to church
Through the smoky streets of Preston
Provoked reflections of a gloomy kind
At trying to be a
priest, Fran was a flop
At surgical swotting he wasn't much cop
For when Pops thought the boy was getting down
To lessons in medicine, he was mooching around Manchester, in his own
dream scene
'Till a college note said - "Yer lad's never been!"
Waggin' it from Uni wasn't a joke
So he bunked off and headed straight to the Smoke
There to lead live the life of a writer
A task that would leave him five stone lighter
He was soon reduced to the rank of a bum
In the vice like grip of laudanum
[Chorus]
Fran tried to live by his poetry
To failure he seemed resigned
Walking, with
a life unplanned
Weaving through the streets of London
Taking something
to block out the daily grind
The Guildhall library
kicked him out on the street
Cos let's just
say he wasn't smelling too sweet
Living like a tramp and high as a kite
Under London Bridge he continued to write
These poems he sent off to a mag
When he was just about ripe for a body bag
Saved by the Meynalls and given TLC
Recovered, he wrote more poetry
Though his behaviour was still a little quirky
Lets face it the guy was going cold turkey
The perambulations he couldn't stop
Along with buying 'stuff' from the corner shop
His famous poem is "The Hound Of Heaven
And thats where
he went in 1907
Copyright
© Michael Helme 2003
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