Then with sore and aching back we have got to boil and pack;
And then the hungry middleman's remittance,
When it comes, is precious small, what a docker-lad would call
A paltry and a belly-pinching pittance.
Yet the Fish-Rings, they do say, are quite prosperous and gay,
And Billingsgate is wealthy; and the skimpers
Who so cut our profits down, live like fighting-cocks in town,
On the ill-paid toil of fishermen and shrimpers!
Ah! That "Harvest of the Sea" is a sounding phrase, but we
Find such "poetry" for us has little meaning.