He only appears in the pouring rain
When all the gutters are clogged,
I asked if anyone knew his name
They said, but my ears were blocked.
There wasn’t a thing you could hear out there
For the water, bubbling through,
The rain’s refrain in a noisy drain,
The thunder and lightning too.

You’d see his shadow on distant walls
Thrown there by a gaslight flare,
And catch the shape of his stovepipe hat
Flitting both here and there,
They say he’s waiting for dollymops
Just as they’re starting to run,
As night is chasing the day away
And rain’s blotting out the sun.

Then rumour has it, the Ripper’s back
We’re waiting for blood and gore,
We’re tense, awaiting the first attack,
For that’s what the Ripper’s for.
They say he chews on his victim’s bones
Then eats their liver and all,
The streets will fill with their awful groans
As blood will spatter a wall.

And then the sound of a horses hooves
Pulling a Landau coach,
Its wheels a-rattle on cobblestones
Just as he cuts their throats,
Perhaps he’ll lure them to take a ride
In that black, square box on wheels,
Then all that slashing goes on inside,
God knows how a razor feels.

We sit and muse in the Hemlock Inn
A dollymop on our laps,
And feed the terror they feel within
Filling in most of the gaps.
They turn to us for protection then
So we gain their favours cheap,
And keep on telling those same old tales
Til the bawds curl up, and weep.

Whenever the fog and the mist are thick
And the lamplight’s just a glow,
We make our way to the Hemlock Inn
Where the skirts are raised, you know,
Then say his shadow’s been seen again
Just to make the bawds all shriek,
‘He’s getting ready to pounce, and then…’
He’ll be there again, next week.

David Lewis Paget