wants without end,
While the tinker's content with a kettle to mend.
For a tinker owns naught but the earth, which is man's.
Then, bring out your kettles! Ho, kettles and pans!"

From the mayoral bed with unmayoral cries
The magistrate sprang ere he'd opened his eyes.
"Hold him!" he yelled, as he bounced on the floor.
"Oh, who is this tinker that rhymes at my door?
Go get me the name and the title of him 1"
They answered. "Be calm, sir. 'Tis no one but Sym.

'Tis Sym, the mad tinker, the son of old Joi,
Who ran from his home when a bit of a boy.
He went for a tramp, tho' 'tis common belief,
When folk were not looking he went for a thief;
Then went for a tinker, and rhymes as he goes.
Some say he's crazy, but nobody knows."

'Twas thus it began, the exalting of Sym,
And the mad Gluggish struggle that raged around him.
For the good Mayor seized him, and clothed him in silk,
And fed him on pumpkins and pasteurised milk,
And praised him in public, and coupled his name
With Gosh's vague prophet of archival fame.

The Press interviewed him a great many times,
And printed his portrait, and published his rhymes;
Till the King and Sir Stodge and the Swanks grew afraid
Of his fame 'mid the Glugs and the trouble it made.
For, wherever Sym went in the city of Gosh,
There were cheers for the tinker, and hoots for King Splosh.

His goings and comings were watched for and cheered;
And a crowd quickly gathered where'er he appeared.
All the folk flocked around him and shouted his praise;
For the Glugs followed fashion, and Sym was a craze.
They sued him for words, which they greeted with cheers,
For the way with a Glug is to tickle his ears.

"0, speak to us, Tinker! Your wisdom we crave!"
They'd cry when they saw him; then Sym would look grave,
And remark, with an air, "'Tis a very fine day."
"Now ain't he a marvel?" they'd shout. "Hip, Hooray!"
"To live," would Sym answer, "To live is to feel!"
"And ain't he a poet?" a fat Glug would squeal.

Sym had a quaint fancy in phrase and in text;
When he'd fed them with one they would howl for the next.
Thus he'd cry, "Love is love 1" and the welkin they'd lift
With their shouts of surprise at his wonderful gift.
He would say "After life, then a Glug must meet death!"
And they'd clamour for more ere he took the next breath.

But Sym grew aweary of this sort of praise,
And he longed to be back with his out-o'-door days,