IN ancient times, no matter where, A nation lived of wise men, Who lawyers fed with special care, Bum-bailiffs and excisemen; Who made good laws to guard a hare, A partridge or a pheasant, But left the poor to nature's care: Say, was not this right pleasant? Who shut up men within brick walls, Because they were indebted; Then let them out when hunger's calls Had them to shadows fretted; Who paid ten thousand fools and knaves, And twenty thousand villains, To make their fellow-subjects slaves, And steal their pence and shillings; Who cut each others' throats for fun, On land and on the water, While half the world looked weeping on, And half was burst with laughter. Who to this country would not run, Where only freedom's got at? Where birds escape the fatal gun, And men alone are shot at. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...GROWN-UP TALK by KATHERINE MANSFIELD A DREAM OF JULIUS CAESAR by ROBERT FROST CACHE LA POUDRE by JAMES GALVIN THEY HAVEN'T HEARD THE WEST IS OVER by JAMES GALVIN TO W.E.B. DUBOIS - SCHOLAR by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON |