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By Joseph Carson

No venal bard, with sugar'd lays,

Has tuned his harp your ear to please;
Or say there harbours in your breast,
Such yirtues as you ne'er possess'd.

I never court the Muse for that,
I leave such fulsome stuff for Stott,
(To scribble with his honied quill,
And carry it up to Bishop's hill,)
Who lately chang'd his crippling song,
To crush the weak and back the strong.

For me, I've other "tow to teaze,"
Than strive the great folk's ear to please.
Some of these greedy black-coat squad,
That point their different roads to God,
And tell us meekly when they preach,
(Yet counteract the laws they teach)
To mind the great injunctions given,
And lay up all our store in Heaven.

Still battling for the loaves and fishes,
They sanction •Satan's vilest wishes;
Their coffers full of earthly riches-
Their flesh just like to burst their breeches;
They swill their toddy, game, and whore,
And heedless pass the needy poor,
Yet bid us live as virgins chaste,
And not a drop of whiskey taste.

And when they mount the holy rostrum,
They pour forth many a Scripture nostrum,
With vigour touching every part
That praises charity of heart.

These lads when I’m in tiff t’abuse
Are ample subjects for the Muse.
With my satiric whip, my pen,
I lay some stripes on other, men
Men, tho' exalted more in station,
Yet riper far' for flagellation.

These borough-mong'ring knaves and Peers,
That tug the nation by the ears;
They run, di'el driven, to Parliament,
And to oppress new modes invent.
With rents and tithes they heap on taxes,
To keep us poor, to crush and vex us,
To cram the craw of bluff John Bull,
And fill some foreign coffers full;
To deck the minions of the court,
And keep up jilts for G--'s sport;
To pay police to keep us humble,
And blow our brains out if we grumble.

But point the man, or rich, or poor,
Who opens to distress his door,
Who feels for other's woes and pain,
Whose heart's a link of friendship's chain.
For him the willing Muse would raise,
In loudest notes, the song of praise.

But, Sir, the purport of my lay,
The Muse has mourn'd this many a day;
For FATHER KEATING'S famous pages,
That paint the deeds of former ages,
(When Erin's kings their sceptre sway'd,
And freedom flourished undismay'd,)
To know if any dauntless wight,
Like Wallace, foremost march'd in fight,
And led, 'midst carnage-heaping guns,
Hibernia's freeborn valiant sons,
Till overpowered by murd'ring hosts,
That spread destruction round our coasts,
Sunk nobly down in bloody graves,
Rather than live poor shackled slaves.

If deeds like these, in days of old,
Were done by Brin's heroes bold,
To set their native country free,
'Tis all a mystic page to me.

O Poverty! the chiefest bane,
Inflicted on the rhyming train,
By thee how stinted is my store -
Of knowledge of the days of yore.
Full sore (untaught in school or college,
I feel the want of useful knowledge;)
Were I deep read in ancient lore,
My simple Muse might higher soar,
And sing the deeds of former days,
And give the dead their meed of praise,
Till every patriotic soul -
Would sound our wrongs from pole to pole,
And loudly rap for retribution
The portals of the constitution.