Classic Poem

Being a Song of the Prisoners of Newgate at the



Jail Delivery


To the Tune of " Hark, the Thundering Cannons Roar "

Trumpets sound and steeples ring,
Every loyal subject sing
With a health to James our king
For his pardon granted.
Prisoners half dead that lay,
Closed in stone instead of clay,
Have their liberty today
Which before they wanted.

Newgate lately did bring forth
Seventy children at a birth,
All in wantonness and mirth
At a jail delivery.
But her keepers they lie in,
Money-sick for want of sin;
They will look both pale and thin
Till a new recovery.

Now the doors are open wide
Jack may take his mare and ride
With a leg on every side,
And the jade be flinging;
Take her halter, Ketch, and try
What's the nearest course to die,
And we'll write thine elegy,
" He's hanged for want of hanging. "

Henceforth we will steal no more
Though we should be ne'er so poor.
If by chance we take a whore
In single fornication,
We get a soldier to the king
Or a seaman who doth bring
From the Indies everything:
It doth not wrong the nation.

We were rebels more than base
To abuse an act of grace;
We'll ne'er do't in any case,
We'll legal be and loyal.
If the French begin to reel
(English hearts are true as steel),
We'll make their breasts our bullets feel
For James our king, the royal.

Should our case be ne'er so bad,
We will never be so mad
As to go upon the pad
Whilst our life endureth.
This rogue that was a great trepan
Is two parts turned a civil man
And honestly drinks off his can
And nothing deadly feareth.

We wish that those that cannot pay
Their debts may have a jubiley,
That poor men for the king may pray
At his great coronation.
To see the usurers go mourn
And take with Jack a second turn,
When their bills and bonds they burn,
Would overjoy the nation.

Whittington did build an house,
Enough to starve a rat or mouse,
But left allowance for a louse
To give poor men the fever.
But James the Great hath found a way
To turn his scepter to a key
And give his children all the play:
God bless him then forever.