You can’t match the colour o’ these heath mounds,
Nor better that peat-fire’s agreeable smell.
I’m clothed-like with natural sights and sounds;
To myself I’m in tune: I hope you’re as well.
You jolly old cot! though you don’t own coal:
It’s a generous pot that’s boiled with peat.
Let the Lord Mayor o’ London roast oxen whole:
His smoke, at least, don’t smell so sweet.
VII
I’m not a low Radical, hating the laws,
Who’d the aristocracy rebuke.
I talk o’ the Lord Mayor o’ London because
I once was on intimate terms with his cook.
I served him a turn, and got pensioned on scraps,
And, Lord, Sir! didn’t I envy his place,
Till Death knock’d him down with the softest of taps,
And I knew what was meant by a tallowy face!
VIII
On the contrary, I’m Conservative quite;
There’s beggars in Scripture ’mongst Gentiles and Jews:
It’s nonsense, trying to set things right,
For if people will give, why, who’ll refuse?
That stopping old custom wakes my spleen:
The poor and the rich both in giving agree:
Your tight-fisted shopman’s the Radical mean:
There’s nothing in common ’twixt him and me.
IX
He says I’m no use! but I won’t reply.
You’re lucky not being of use to him!
On week-days he’s playing at Spider and Fly,
And on Sundays he sings about Cherubim!
Nailing shillings to counters is his chief work:
He nods now and then at the name on his door:
But judge of us two, at a bow and a smirk,
I think I’m his match: and I’m honest—that’s more.
X
No use! well, I mayn’t be. You ring a pig’s snout,
And then call the animal glutton! Now, he,
Mr. Shopman, he’s nought but a pipe and a spout
Who won’t let the goods o’ this world pass free.
This blazing blue weather all round the brown crop,
He can’t enjoy! all but cash he hates.
He’s only a snail that crawls under his shop;
Though he has got the ear o’ the magistrates.