Classic Poem

" News! news! " " What news? "
" The skin of a butcher's a — e
Would sole a pair of shoes. "

1.

If hard and tough grow butchers' bums,
Because they often ride;
If thick with cant, as both my thumbs,
Is meek Saint Agnew's hide;
If consciences grow thick and foul
With quibbles that men use:
The skin of sweet Sir Robert's soul
Would sole a pair of shoes.

2.

If greedy men, with eating ducks,
Web-footed ne'er have grown,
The landed leech, our blood that sucks,
Wont bring us beef from stone:
But if backsides, once soft as down,
Have tough as teak become,
Sir Robert, bobbing up and down,
Is like a butcher's bum.

3.

And if his soul's thin skin grows tough
With bobbing up and down;
And nought but leather's tough enough
To save a leagur'd town;
What need we do, our foes to ban,
Our country's wounds to heal,
But get some practis'd hand to tan
The well-bobb'd soul of Peel?

4.

And since the man won't think it sin
To save a soul from hell —
But which his soul, and which his skin,
May find it hard to tell —
What need we do, I fain would learn,
If such a case befal,
But lime and soak the whole concern,
And tan him, soul and all?

5.

But where a tanner shall we get,
Not squeamish in his wame?
For Brougham no longer tans such ket;
My lords, it were a shame!
Unless our Queen would musk the scum
Of bobbers, as is fit.
And send him, nick-nam'd " Baron Bum, "
Up to the civet-pit.