POLITICAL,
WRITTEN FOR A CLUB IN THE COUNTRY.
I’m a plain, homely, man, and now take up my pen, sir,
To counteract the tenets of Paine’s “Rights of Men,” sir,
Free and happy I enjoy the harvest of my labours,
And never interfere, but to comfort needy neighbours.
CHORUS—Row, row, row,
I’m for peace and quietness,
Not row, row.
I cherish and retain still each old-fashion’d notion,
Of order, freedom, property, security, devotion;
I’d rather have our king, than Tom Paine the lord protector,
And I’ll combat, with my life, ev’ry plund’ring projector.
CHORUS.
Then attend, daring schemers, involv’d in disputation,
Each with plans in your pockets, to renovate the nation,
I’ll oppose to brilliant wit, art, cunning, and sagacity,
Experience the store of my humble mean capacity.
CHORUS.
Liberty we have, tho’ some say it’s farce and fiction,
It’s by law well secur’d, and confirm’d in restriction,
Thus guarded, we are safe from disorder and delusion,
The dogmas of demagogues, and sans-culotte confusion.
CHORUS.
Our property’s defence is the law long enacted,
And sacred to it, our obedience is exacted,
Each social gradation, by which we stand or fall, sir,
Is wisely ordain’d for the welfare of all, sir.
CHORUS.
Virtue, innocence, integrity, I know are protected,
Audacity and crime are punish’d when detected,
True freedom gave the pow’r, in hatred and aversion,
To tyranny in all its forms, excesses, and coercion.
CHORUS.
My religion’s purely christian, the law’s establish’d church, sir,
And I never wish to see alma mater in the lurch, sir,
I’d leave to all dissenters what wisdom left before, sir,
For, give them all they ask, restless souls, they’d still ask more, sir.
CHORUS.
Our compact’s a stranger to violent extremes, sir;
’Tis wisdom and temp’rance; with mildness it teems, sir:
But as old father Time no edifice ere spared, sir,
In due season, when it wants it, let the structure be repair’d, sir.
CHORUS.
I worship no idol when I say that I’m devoted,
To this fabric of Britons, admir’d, esteem’d, and noted;
The blood in these young veins I’d spill in its defence, sir,
And my wish is, May it firmly stand for centuries hence, sir.
CHORUS.