THE POLICE SERGEANT'S SONG

SERGEANT: When the foeman bares his steel,
   Tarantara! tarantara!
We uncomfortable feel,
   Tarantara!
And we find the wisest thing,
   Tarantara! tarantara!
Is to slap our chests and sing,
   Tarantara!
For when threatened with emeutes,
   Tarantara! tarantara!
And your heart is in your boots,
   Tarantara!
There is nothing brings it round
   Tarantara! tarantara!
Like the trumpet’s martial sound,
   Tarantara! tarantara!

ALL: Tarantara, ra, ra, ra, ra!

MABEL: Go, ye heroes, go to glory,
Though you die in combat gory,
Ye shall live in song and story.
Go to immortality!
Go to death, and go to slaughter;
Die, and every Cornish daughter
With her tears your grave shall water.
Go, ye heroes, go and die!

ALL GIRLS: Go, ye heroes, go and die!

Tarantara: This is meant to imitate the blare of trumpets.

Emeutes: A French word meaning a riot.

Cornish daughter: A woman of the borough of Cornwall in which Penzance is laid. The General is probably not Cornish but has apparently just bought his estate there. The Cornish women would be weeping because of lost husbands who were members of the police.

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Revised February 2010
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