Low Ebb.
Back in the bad old days, in Old London Town
A mist sprung up, a heavy fog rolled down,
As the good God-fearing Victorian folk slept
Into seedy Whitechapel that damned fog crept.
At the end of a dark dank Dockside alleyway
A lady of the night decided she’d call it a day,
It had been a profitable night for an enterprising maid;
But there’s no profit being alone in the dark, in her trade.
She headed for home with bone weary tread,
After a night on her back she longed for her bed,
But she was mistaken to think she was all alone,
In the fog muffled footsteps echoed her own.
In the confines of Bucks Close the fog thickened,
As those steps sped up her heart-beat quickened,
From her trembling lips her breath came wreathing,
Then, on her neck she felt a hot and heavy breathing.
For a girl who regularly walked the street
This was no man she had wished to meet,
He seized his lapels, opened his greatcoat wide
And the size of his weapon left her terrified…
No, this was no ordinary flasher,
Yes, this was the Docklands slasher!
In a flash her days (and nights) were done,
Then ’twas the Rippers time to cut and run.
Down towards the Thames he blindly ran,
Washing his hands of the crime being the plan,
But the infernal fog hid the embankment railing
And into the dirty old river the Ripper went sailing.
Weighed down by a voluminous greatcoat
Jack the Dipper struggled vainly to stay afloat,
He and his cries for assistance were lost in the mist,
And so the Ripper himself wound up last on his list.
Though the man(iac) in question has long gone
The myth and mystery of his identity lingers on,
The name of the Ripper no-one can provide
All known remains, lost to time, and to tide.
