Ned Kelly indulged in a bit of poetry at the end of his letter to Donald Cameron, with the following two passages:
While an outlaw reigns their pocket swells
’Tis double pay and country girls [gals]
For I need no lead or powder
To revenge my cause
And if words be louder
I will oppose your laws.
Editor’s notes:
Michael Farrell has put forward the theory that Ned Kelly’s Babington letter should be read as a sonnet. The theory may be regarded as somewhat dubious, but of note nonetheless.
See: Michael Farrell, “The black or unfair image: Reading Ned Kelly’s Babington letter as a sonnet”, Journal of the Association for the Study of Australian Literature, v.8, 2008, p.7-16 (available as a PDF file) (accessed 23 October 2012)
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