1227 Knights  (Li Cavajjeri)
Translated by Peter Nicholas Dale
 
Yeah, keep it up, yuz fine chaps, that’s rite!
Knights t’day, an knights the day after!
It’s always knights: the rulers keep maken’em faster
Cos all they know is how da make new knights.
 
Priests, thieves, officials, servents, moun’banks,
The lodduv’em wear little crosses on their togs.
An by now they’d ged’em too if they asked, even dogs,
I reckun ut they’d be happy ta give’em the rank.
 
Any vice ya name’s good f’ra knighten, ay? . .
I’d like ta larf tho at that t’riffic outflow
A Knights, when it cums down’a Judgement Day,
 
When raisen his arm, Jesus Christ’ull say: “Well,
Yu gen’leman, ya fuckwitted knights, go’n blow
Them crosses oudda yer arses, n’ then off ta damnation an Hell.”
 
11/1/2001
The sonnet is translated into "Strine", the dialect spoken in Australia down to the 1960s.