________________________________________________
Title: Will Wood's Petition To The People Of Ireland
Author: Jonathan Swift [
More Titles by Swift]
BEING AN EXCELLENT NEW SONG,
SUPPOSED TO BE MADE, AND SUNG IN THE STREETS OF DUBLIN,
BY WILLIAM WOOD, IRONMONGER AND HALFPENNY-MONGER. 1725
My dear Irish folks,
Come leave off your jokes,
And buy up my halfpence so fine;
So fair and so bright
They'll give you delight;
Observe how they glisten and shine!
They'll sell to my grief
As cheap as neck-beef,
For counters at cards to your wife;
And every day
Your children may play
Span-farthing or toss on the knife.
Come hither and try,
I'll teach you to buy
A pot of good ale for a farthing;
Come, threepence a score,
I ask you no more,
And a fig for the Drapier and Harding.[1]
When tradesmen have gold,
The thief will be bold,
By day and by night for to rob him:
My copper is such,
No robber will touch,
And so you may daintily bob him.
The little blackguard
Who gets very hard
His halfpence for cleaning your shoes:
When his pockets are cramm'd
With mine, and be d--d,
He may swear he has nothing to lose.
Here's halfpence in plenty,
For one you'll have twenty,
Though thousands are not worth a pudden.
Your neighbours will think,
When your pocket cries chink.
You are grown plaguy rich on a sudden.
You will be my thankers,
I'll make you my bankers,
As good as Ben Burton or Fade;[2]
For nothing shall pass
But my pretty brass,
And then you'll be all of a trade.
I'm a son of a whore
If I have a word more
To say in this wretched condition.
If my coin will not pass,
I must die like an ass;
And so I conclude my petition.
[Footnote 1: The Drapier's printer.]
[Footnote 2: Two famous bankers.]
[The end]
Jonathan Swift's poem: Will Wood's Petition To The People Of Ireland
________________________________________________
GO TO TOP OF SCREEN
