Classic Poem

Tax , tax! assessment and tax!
We can not get on with these burdensome packs,
Fettered by law to our brains and our backs,
In these hard times.

We toil every hour of the day with our might;
Think, worry, contrive and conjecture all night,
But find no relief on the left or the right,
In these hard times.

While the tax, like an ogre colossal in size,
With a myriad of hands and a myriad of eyes,
Consumes us, regardless who lives or who dies,
In these hard times.

If dollars or ducats bloomed out on the trees —
If greenbacks came down on the wing of the breeze,
We could pay this enormous assessment with ease,
In these hard times.

If gold-dust were sown in the soil and the sands,
We would willingly shoulder our picks and our pans,
And dig the amount with our horny, brown hands,
In these hard times.

But if we could find sale for our horses and cows,
Our hayrakes and harrows, carts, wagons and plows,
The corn in our crib, and the hay in our mows,
In these hard times.

When we came to pay over the price of them all,
The sum would be found so exceedingly small
That the cormorant tax would still hold us in thrall;
In these hard times.

Should we sell the last bed, the last table and chair,
Pot, platter and pan, with the clothes that we wear,
And adopt the costume of the primitive pair,
In these hard times;

Even then, this unsatisfied, pitiless tax,
Like Shylock, would point us to figures and facts,
And claim every ounce of the pound it exacts,
In these hard times.

Alas, for thee, beautiful land of the West!
That Heaven, like a bride, for her bridal has drest;
And, alas, for thy people so severely opprest!
In these hard times.

The poor man is taxed for the roof on his shed,
For the pig in his sty, for the sheet on his bed,
While his famishing children are crying for bread,
In these hard times.

The widow that toils in the heat and the cold,
Must pay, on her pitiful chattels enrolled,
As much as the chattels would bring, duly sold,
In these hard times.

And even the rich man has cause to complain
Of the measures that bring this exorbitant drain
On the wealth he has toiled half a life to obtain,
In these hard times;

It were better to live on some isle in the sea,
With the friendly Malay or the gentle Feejee,
Where the fruits of the earth and the waters are free,
In these hard times.

Or to wander away with a Bedouin band,
O'er desolate plains of Saharian sand,
Than to grapple with tax in this beautiful land,
In these hard times.