The Poetical Works of Thomas Moore :: :: University of Virginia Library

I sat me down in my easy chair,
To read, as usual, the morning papers;
But—who shall describe my look of despair,
When I came to Lefroy's “destructive” capers!
That he—that, of all live men, Lefroy
Should join in the cry “Destroy, destroy!”
Who, ev'n when a babe, as I've heard said,
On Orange conserve was chiefly fed,
And never, till now, a movement made
That wasn't most manfully retrograde!
Only think—to sweep from the light of day
Mayors, maces, criers, and wigs away;

213

To annihilate—never to rise again—
A whole generation of aldermen,
Nor leave them ev'n the' accustom'd tolls,
To keep together their bodies and souls!—
At a time, too, when snug posts and places
Are falling away from us, one by one,
Crash—crash—like the mummy-cases
Belzoni, in Egypt, sat upon,
Wherein lay pickled, in state sublime,
Conservatives of the ancient time;—
To choose such a moment to overset
The few snug nuisances left us yet;
To add to the ruin that round us reigns,
By knocking out mayors' and town-clerks' brains;
By dooming all corporate bodies to fall,
Till they leave, at last, no bodies at all—
Nought but the ghosts of by-gone glory,
Wrecks of a world that once was Tory!—
Where pensive criers, like owls unblest,
Robb'd of their roosts, shall still hoot o'er them;
Nor may'rs shall know where to seek a nest,
Till Gally Knight shall find one for them;—
Till mayors and kings, with none to rue 'em,
Shall perish all in one common plague;

214

And the sovereigns of Belfast and Tuam
Must join their brother, Charles Dix, at Prague.

Thus mus'd I, in my chair, alone,
(As above describ'd) till dozy grown,
And nodding assent to my own opinions,
I found myself borne to sleep's dominions,
Where, lo, before my dreaming eyes,
A new House of Commons appear'd to rise,
Whose living contents, to fancy's survey,
Seem'd to me all turn'd topsy-turvy—
A jumble of polypi—nobody knew
Which was the head or which the queue.
Here, Inglis, turn'd to a sans-culotte,
Was dancing the hays with Hume and Grote;
There, ripe for riot, Recorder Shaw
Was learning from Roebuck “Ça-ira;”
While Stanley and Graham, as poissarde wenches,
Scream'd “à-bas!” from the Tory benches;
And Peel and O'Connell, cheek by jowl,
Were dancing an Irish carmagnole.

The Lord preserve us!—if dreams come true,
What is this hapless realm to do?

These verses were written in reference to the Bill brought in at this time, for the reform of Corporations, and the sweeping amendments proposed by Lord Lyndhurst and other Tory Peers, in order to obstruct the measure.