And never the brooks of the vale
Can speak the half of the glory,
The due of the Nonpareil.
Champion of all Champions,
Greatest in all times' bound,
The lad who held Fitzsimmons
For thirteen gory rounds.
But the ring's red history passes
To a swiftly roving tale,
And there's few who now remember
The name of the Nonpareil.
But here's to the greatest of fighters,
To a name that never shall fail,
To the name of the first Jack Dempsey
The wonderful Nonpareil.
John Kelley
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I hesitate to name your name,
John Kelley,
For I shrink from obscenity.
I hope you feel white,
After pilloring a child before a snarling pack
Of yellow-bellied swine, who after all,
Were whiter at heart than you, John Kelley.
You should feel proud, Honorable sir,
For the dung you have cast into the faces
Of the American people;
For the blow you have dealt at American womanhood,
And the woman-hood of your own color and race,
John Kelley.
You have betrayed the women of your race,
John Kelley,
And if you had the soul of a man instead of a hog,
Your dreams would be haunted by dim shapes
And quivering shadows,
By tear-dimmed eyes and pale faces and slender white hands,
By all the dim women down all Eternity,
Who suffered and passed through the red portals of Hell
To give you being, John Kelley.
This is my word to you,
And may you remember it.
It is my hope that your yellow-bellied pets
Will deal with you some day as you have dealt with your own
People;
That they will nail you into a barrel
Full of razor blades
And roll you down a hill into hell, John Kelley.
John L. Sullivan
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Bellowing, blustering, old John L.
Fearing nothing 'tween sky and hell!
Rushing, roaring, swinging his right.
Smashing, crashing, forcing the fight.
Battering foes until they fell,
Tilt your glasses to old John L.!
Mitchell he knocked, from the ring clear out!
Dropped Kilrain with a single clout!
Laflin he beat and Burke he flayed,
Knocked out the Maori Giant, Slade!
Packed in each fist, damnation and hell!
Tilt your glasses to old John L.!
Old John L.'s in town today
He's hitting it down the Great White way.
Look at his swallow tail coat, silk hat!
Mustache too, say he's on a bat!
Living it in, that you can tell,
Tilt your glasses to old John L.!
He's cleaned out the roughest, toughest saloon,
He's licked O'Rourke and Jem McClune,
Sampled every saloon on the streets,
Buying drinks for all he meets,
He's taking the bowery in pell-mell!
Tilt your glasses to old John L.!
Stick in your head in the grog-shop door,
Look at him! Listen to his roar!
"Set out eh whiskey. Jimmy, ye bum!
Belly the bar, ye half bred scum!
I can lick any guy from here to hell!"
Tilt your glasses to old John L.!
The world moves on and the ring moves too
Old fighters have long given way to new.
But here;s a health to the olden days,
To the wild old, mad old, bad old ways,
When a fight was a fight and not a sell,
And tilt your glasses to old John L.
Kid Lavigne is Dead
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Hang up the battered gloves; Lavigne is dead.
Bold and erect he went into the dark.
The crown is withered and the crowds are fled,
The empty ring stands bare and lone—yet hark:
The ghostly roar of many a phantom throng
Floats down the dusty years, forgotten long.
Hot blazed the lights above the crimson ring
Where there he reigned in his full prime, a king.
The throngs’ acclaim roared up beneath their sheen
And whispered down the night: "Lavigne! Lavigne!"
Red splashed the blood and fierce the crashing blows.
Men staggered to the mat and reeling rose.
Crowns glittered there in splendour, won or lost,
And bones were shattered as the sledges crossed.
Swift as a leopard, strong and fiercely lean,
Champions knew the prowess of Lavigne.
The giant dwarf Joe Walcott saw him loom
And broken, bloody, reeled before his doom.
Handler and Everhardt and rugged Burge
Saw at the last his snarling face emerge
From bloody mists that veiled their dimming sight
Ere they sank down into unlighted night.
Strong men and bold, lay vanquished at his feet.
Mighty was he in triumph and defeat.
Far fade the echoes of the ringside’s cheers
And all is lost in mists of dust-dead years.
Cold breaks the dawn; the East is ghastly red.
Hand up the broken gloves; Lavigne is dead.
The Kissing of Sal Snooboo
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A bunch of the girls were whooping it up
In the old Lip-stick saloon,
And the kid at the player-piano
Was twanging a jazzy tune,
When out of the night with perfume on his shirt
And stacomb upon his hair,
A young man staggered inside the door
And meowed like a grizzly-bear.
He kicked the kid off the piano stool
And sat him down to play.
The piano yowled like an old tom cat
To the tune of "Hip! Hurray!"
Says he, "Gals, you don’t know me,
But, by gosh, I know you,
And one of you is a classy dame,
And that one is Sal Snooboo!"
She squawked and somebody turned the lights,
Something went "Smack!" in the dark.
There was nothing for anybody to do
But to stand still and s****** and hark.