After Robert Browning

It was chickens, chickens, all the way,
With children crossing the road like mad;
Police disguised in the hedgerows lay,
Stop-watches and large white flags they had,
At nine o'clock o' this very day.

I broke the record to Tunbridge Wells,
And I shouted aloud, to all concerned,
" Give room, good folk, do you hear my bells? "
But my motor skidded and overturned;
Then exploded — and afterwards, what smells!

Alack! it was I rode over the son
Of a butcher; rolled him all of a heap!
Nought man could do did I leave undone;
And I thought that butcher's boys were cheap —
But this, poor man, 'twas his only one.

There's nobody in my motor now, —
Just a tangled car in the ditch upset;
For the fun of the fair is, all allow,
At the County Court, or, better yet,
By the very foot of the dock, I trow.

Thus I entered, and thus I go;
In Court the magistrate sternly said,
" Five guineas fine, and the costs you owe! "
I might not question, so promptly paid.
Henceforth I walk ; I am safer so.