Classic Poem

SCENE — A reading Room. (The Chairman speaks.)

(First published in the Anti-Jacobin Magazine.)

From open rebellion we've no hopes at all,
If we throw off the mask we are certain to fall —
Let our vot'ries then follow the glorious advice.
In the gunpowder legacy left us by Price;
" Inflammable matter to lay grain by grain,"
And blow up the state with the torch of Tom Paine!
For John Bull has a passion which most we detest,
Of all countries on earth, he loves England the best;
Our efforts in private must all be combin'd
To banish this prejudice out of his mind:
We must ridicule all that is sacred, and great,
And sap the foundation of church, law, and state:
No engine so sure as the means we employ,
To ridicule first what we mean to destroy;
To teach the young mind there's no life after this,
No posthumous punishment — no future bliss!
Our philosophers then will inculcate, no doubt,
That the sole crime of murder is, being found out ;
And if by that method we further our cause,
The private assassin deserves our applause;
But he who, like Robespierre, murders en masse ,
As his bowels are steel — his bust shall be brass!
And Jacobins, grateful for merit so bright,
Shall worship their idol in anarchy's night —
That long night to the sciences, virtues and arts!
When Jacobin daggers strike patriot hearts,
And rapine stalks forth, at the leveller's knell,
To realize here all the horrors of hell!
But my ardour, I fear, has betray'd me too far —
The times are not ripe to confess what we are;
We must flatter, cajole, and our numbers increase,
And foment civil war, while we clamour for peace,
Correspond with the French, and their doctrines maintain
A propos — I've a letter from Citizen Paine —