More verse and prose By the Cornlaw Rhymer [i.e. Ebenezer Elliott]. In two volumes |
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TRUTH MORE STRANGE THAN FICTION. |
 | More verse and prose |  |
TRUTH MORE STRANGE THAN FICTION.
Scene—A wide plain, covered with skeletons and snow.Enter Payall and Allbelly.
Payall.
Heart of mud, and brain of steel!
What hast thou been doing?
Allbelly.
Calming tumult, curing ruin—
Eating children, fathers, mothers,
Nieces, nephews, sisters, brothers;
Heap'd thousands at a meal.
Payall.
All-maw! all-cursing! all-accurs'd!
Thou'rt loathsome as thy food.
Allbelly.
I eat them up, to do them good;
To do them good, I starve them first.
To plunder is to bless,
To murder is to save:
What could men less, in thankfulness,
Than feed this living grave?
But not their flesh alone
Doth my vast hunger need;
On torture's groan, on famine's moan,
On mute despair I feed:
My fateless greed
Their all of life controls;
I eat their souls.
The plain is suddenly darkened, and a gigantic Shadow enters, deepening the gloom.
[To Allbelly.]
Eternal Stink! where are my children?
Allbelly.
Here.
Shadow.
Where?
Allbelly.
I am they.
Shadow.
Maggot! hast thou no fear of me?
Allbelly.
Thee? I am Maggot.
Shadow.
[To Payall.]
Misery!
Hast thou no hope?
Payall.
None, none,—nor trust in thee:
Why should I have, if thou permitt'st to be
That loathsome monster? or a thing like me?
I am indebted for this drama to T. et P. of L., near Sheffield, Esq.; for it originated in a conversation which I lately had with that gentleman in a railway carriage, when Landlordism in Ireland was destroying its victims by hundreds of thousands! he asserting the worn-out and infernal blasphemy, That the Cornlaws were enacted to benefit the consumers! One would think that our Protectionists (if they are, as they seem never tired of proving, at once, the worst and the most insolent of criminals,) might be satisfied with having escaped hanging; yet they continue to act as if they thought themselves still privileged to outrage the common sense of every victim whom they have not yet quite succeeded in stamping into the grave! August 21st, 1847.
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