(1820.)
Awake, arise, the hour is come, For rows and revolutions;There's no receipt like pike and drum For crazy constitutions.
Close, close the shop! Break, break the loom, Desert your hearths and furrows, And throng in arms to seal the doom Of England's rotten boroughs.
We'll stretch that tort'ring Castlereagh On his own Dublin rack, sir;We'll drown the King in Eau de vie, The Laureate in his sack, sir, Old Eldon and his sordid hag In molten gold we'll smother, And stifle in his own green bag The Doctor and his brother.
In chains we'll hang in fair Guildhall The City's famed recorder, And next on proud St Stephen's fall, Though Wynne should squeak to order.
In vain our tyrants then shall try To 'scape our martial law, sir;In vain the trembling Speaker cry That "Strangers must withdraw," sir.
Copley to hang offends no text;
A rat is not a man, sir:
With schedules, and with tax bills next We'll bury pious Van, sir.
The slaves who loved the income Tax, We'll crush by scores, like mites, sir, And him, the wretch who freed the blacks, And more enslaved the whites, sir.
The peer shall dangle from his gate, The bishop from his steeple, Till all recanting, own, the State Means nothing but the People.
We'll fix the church's revenues On Apostolic basis, One coat, one scrip, one pair of shoes Shall pay their strange grimaces.
We'll strap the bar's deluding train In their own darling halter, And with his big church bible brain The parson at the altar.
Hail glorious hour, when fair Reform Shall bless our longing nation, And Hunt receive commands to form A new administration.
Carlisle shall sit enthroned, where sat Our Cranmer and our Secker;And Watson show his snow-white hat In England's rich Exchequer.
The breast of Thistlewood shall wear Our Wellesley's star and sash, man:
And many a mausoleum fair Shall rise to honest Cashman.
Then, then beneath the nine-tailed cat Shall they who used it writhe, sir;And curates lean, and rectors fat, Shall dig the ground they tithe, sir.
Down with your Bayleys, and your Bests, Your Giffords, and your Gurneys:
We'll clear the island of the pests, Which mortals name attorneys.
Down with your sheriffs, and your mayors, Your registrars, and proctors, We'll live without the lawyer's cares, And die without the doctor's.
No discontented fair shall pout To see her spouse so stupid;We'll tread the torch of Hymen out, And live content with Cupid.
Then, when the high-born and the great Are humbled to our level, On all the wealth of Church and State, Like aldermen, we'll revel.
We'll live when hushed the battle's din, In smoking and in cards, sir, In drinking unexcised gin, And wooing fair Poissardes, sir....