The works of Lord Byron A new, revised and enlarged edition, with illustrations. Edited by Ernest Hartley Coleridge and R. E. Prothero |
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 | The works of Lord Byron |  |
AN ODE TO THE FRAMERS OF THE FRAME BILL.
1
Oh well done Lord E---n! and better done R---r!Britannia must prosper with councils like yours;
Hawkesbury, Harrowby, help you to guide her,
Whose remedy only must kill ere it cures:
Those villains; the Weavers, are all grown refractory,
Asking some succour for Charity's sake—
So hang them in clusters round each Manufactory,
That will at once put an end to mistake.
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2
The rascals, perhaps, may betake them to robbing,The dogs to be sure have got nothing to eat—
So if we can hang them for breaking a bobbin,
'T will save all the Government's money and meat:
Men are more easily made than machinery—
Stockings fetch better prices than lives—
Gibbets on Sherwood will heighten the scenery,
Shewing how Commerce, how Liberty thrives!
3
Justice is now in pursuit of the wretches,Grenadiers, Volunteers, Bow-street Police,
Twenty-two Regiments, a score of Jack Ketches,
Three of the Quorum and two of the Peace;
Some Lords, to be sure, would have summoned the Judges,
To take their opinion, but that they ne'er shall,
For Liverpool such a concession begrudges,
So now they're condemned by no Judges at all.
4
Some folks for certain have thought it was shocking,When Famine appeals and when Poverty groans,
That Life should be valued at less than a stocking,
And breaking of frames lead to breaking of bones.
If it should prove so, I trust, by this token,
(And who will refuse to partake in the hope?)
That the frames of the fools may be first to be broken,
Who, when asked for a remedy, sent down a rope.
| The works of Lord Byron | |