Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, A RADICAL SONG OF 1786, by ST. JOHN HONEYWOOD


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

A RADICAL SONG OF 1786, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Huzza, my jo bunkers! No taxes we'll pay
Last Line: Stop the courts in each county, and bully the laws.
Subject(s): Shays's Rebellion


HUZZA, my Jo Bunkers! no taxes we'll pay;
Here's a pardon for Wheeler, Shays, Parsons, and Day;
Put green boughs in your hats, and renew the old cause;
Stop the courts in each county, and bully the laws:
Constitutions and oaths, sir, we mind not a rush;
Such trifles must yield to us lads of the bush.
New laws and new charters our books shall display,
Composed by conventions and Counsellor Grey.

Since Boston and Salem so haughty have grown,
We'll make them to know we can let them alone.
Of Glasgow or Pelham we'll make a seaport,
And there we'll assemble our General Court:
Our governor, now, boys, shall turn out to work,
And live, like ourselves, on molasses and pork;
In Adams or Greenwich he'll live like a peer
On three hundred pounds, paper money, a year.

Grand jurors, and sheriffs, and lawyers we'll spurn,
As judges, we'll all take the bench in our turn,
And sit the whole term, without pension or fee,
Nor Cushing nor Sewal look graver than we.
Our wigs, though they're rusty, are decent enough;
Our aprons, though black, are of durable stuff;
Array'd in such gear, the laws we'll explain,
That poor people no more shall have cause to complain.

To Congress and impost we'll plead a release;
The French we can beat half-a-dozen apiece;
We want not their guineas, their arms, or alliance;
And as for the Dutchmen, we bid them defiance.
Then huzza, my Jo Bunkers! no taxes we'll pay;
Here's a pardon for Wheeler, Shays, Parsons and Day;
Put green boughs in your hats, and renew the old cause;
Stop the courts in each county, and bully the laws.





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