Classic Poem

By the Author of — Namby-Pamby —

A master of late,
Ah! hear the sad fate
Which many men say will attend him.
They say his condition
Wants no mortal physician,
So the devil I've pitch'd on to mend him.

This master did strive,
For no man alive
Was equally fir'd with ambition.
Not Croesus himself,
Nor six times his pelf
Should coax me into his condition.

An old founder'd mare,
Once as fleet as a hare,
His name is, they say, Corporation,
He gain'd to bestride her,
But how he did ride her,
Read that in his own reputation.

No honest man, sure,
Would ever endure
Such damnable heaps of conviction.
Though he would persuade
Ev'ry man of his trade
What all can allege is a fiction.

This mare, till he rid her,
Ne'er leaned on her wither,
But soberly trotted and gallop'd.
But he only maul'd her,
Poor creature, and haul'd her,
To make his own kettle to wallop.

But to cover the cheat
He threw out a bait,
A new fangl'd law he invented,
Which he thought the poor mare,
Us'd to moderate fare,
Would have easily have been contented.

But the honest men all,
Who paid for her stall
In which this mare should be attended,
Soon found out the cheat,
And closely debate
That her stall and her tackle be mended.

This her master, 'tis true,
Was able to do,
If honesty had been within him.
But t'have told him of this,
'Tis 'gainst thunder to piss,
For only the devil can win him.

His head is still running
On tricking and cunning,
But he mayn't escape, let me tell you;
For the fox has been caught,
And pay'd dear at last,
For the geese he has put in his belly.

The fox might escape
For this monstrous rape,
Were the geese given into his charge;
And might fairly have nick'd 'em
And cunningly trick'd 'em,
But here is manslaughter at large.

If the cries of the poor
Every day at his door
Can't soften his noddle, nor melt him,
May the blackguard of town
Gain some little renown,
And with pellets of perjury pelt him.