WOODMEN, SPARE THOSE TREES!
New (New Forest) Version.
[Mr. Auberon Herbert says "the rapacious and spendthrift" woodmen of the Crown have recently felled two hundred oaks in the New Forest.]
Woodmen, spare those trees!
You're playing up rare jokes
In felling, at your ease,
Hundreds of British oaks.
We'd ax you stay your axe.
Come! no official rot!
Or Punch's wrath may wax,
And then—you'll get it hot.
Those old familiar trees
Are glory and renown.
Don't think your business, please,
Is just to hew them down!
We ask you, for the nonce.
If such appeal is vain,
We'll bid you, sharp, at once,
"Cut"—and don't come again!