Whatever else they say of me
they’ll never be able to say
I was one of the little blighters
who so brilliantly betray
the tough old England that made us
and in them is rotting away.
I’d betray the middle classes
and money and industry
and the intellectual asses
and cash Christianity.
but not the England that made me
the stuff of a man,
the old England that doesn’t upbraid me,
nor put me under a ban.