We are the duckers of crosses...

Sent in a letter to Howard's friend Tevis Clyde Smith, April 14, 1926. First published in The Last of the Trunk Och Brev I Urval, 2007. Variation on a ballad stanza, with shorter stanzas compressed into one longer stanza. It is a parody of We are the music makers.

592893Untitled1926Robert Ervin Howard

We are the duckers of crosses,
   We are the swingers of swings.
We count our gains and our losses
   In all of the fourth rate rings.
We are the bums and the slackers
   Swiggers of Ancient Crow.
Yet the fans pay sixteen smackers
   To see us knocked for a row.
Bout losers and bout forsakers
   They hand us a-many slams,
For we are the set-ups and fakers,
   We are the fourth-rate hams!
We are the takers of slams and blips!
   Jester and ring-side clown!
But sometimes we go with our trunks on our hips
   And jerk us a title down!
Taking bout that champs are shying,
   Where the ring gong clangs and thrums
Where the swining mitts are flying—
   We are the fourth-rate bums!

This work is from the United States and in the public domain because it was not legally published with the permission of the copyright holder before January 1, 2003 and the author died 88 years ago. This is a posthumous work and its copyright in certain countries and areas may depend on years since posthumous publication, rather than years since the author's death. Translations or editions published later may be copyrighted.


The longest-living author of this work died in 1936, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 87 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.

Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse