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The Poetical Works of Ebenezer Elliott

Edited by his Son Edwin Elliott ... A New and Revised Edition: Two Volumes

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XXV.

The heath-flower reddens. Purple Guttergrub,
To slay the moorcock cometh, fierce and fighty.
King of a dog-cart, and his shooting-club;
Sublime in conflict with starved berry-getters;
And teaching poor folks to respect their betters;
He thinks he is, at least, the King Almighty.
How like a toothless bitch that fain would bite, he
Calls freetrade-humbugs “Scoundrel, Scamp, and Scrub!”
Yet, like a thief who sees a constable,
He drops, when blustering most, his under jaw!
Ho, every slave from Perth to Dunstable,
Take from your looms and plates this magnate's paw,
And he shall yet become of lawless Law
The best Reformer that the world e'er saw!