So he just gets to hop back up, that man that I done in?
I know he’s your man, fair enough, you wanted him to win:
but I come here, the same as him, to fight him fair and square;
I fought him fair and he went down, you seen him lying there.
Here, doc, just tell me what you done to bring the bugger back.
You all know what he needed was the parson, not the quack.
Fine, you lot, laugh, ‘Bold Slasher’s scared’: I wasn’t scared of him.
But now his mouth is black with blood, his eyes are sunk and grim;
all stiff he stands and deathly, and his face is grey as lead:
I’ve beaten bigger men than him; I’ve never fought the dead.
I fought old Dan at Baker’s farm who’d felled a hundred men:
when strong Bold Slasher knocked him down he di’n’t get up again.
I fought a giant at a fair, stood eight or nine foot high:
but brave Bold Slasher climbs a tree and stabs him in the eye.
I fought three brothers all at once; Jack Finney bet I’d lose:
but you’re the one lost that day, Jack, I never got a bruise.
I’m not a clever talker—ask the folk down our way;
‘Bold Slasher, slow old basher,’ that’s the kind of thing they say;
but can’t you see that what your doctor done just isn’t right?
You keep your prize, if that’s the thing—I’m calling off the fight.
And tell me this: what makes you think that dead thing’s on your side?
What makes you think that what’s come back’s the same as what just died?
And when he’s done with me, what then? Who knows what he might do?
Get back, you body: like I’ve said, I will not fight with you.
He won’t get back, he still comes on, he means to do me ill:
so here goes doomed Bold Slasher, that a dead man’s going to kill.