A Song on the Taxes,
1696.
[_]
The attribution of this poem is questionable.
1
Good People, what will you of all be bereft?
Will you never learn Wit while a Penny is left?
You are all like the Dog in the Fable betray'd,
To let go the Substance and snatch at the Shade:
Your specious Pretences and foreign Expences,
We war for Religion and wast all our Chink,
'Tis nipt and 'tis clipt, 'tis lent and 'tis spent,
Till 'tis gone, till 'tis gone to the Devil I think.
2
We pay for our New-born, we pay for our Dead,
We pay if we're single, we pay if we're wed,
To show that our merciful Senate don't fail
To begin at the Head and tax down to the Tail.
We pay thro the Nose by subjecting Foes,
Yet for all our Expences get nothing but Blows;
At home we are cheated, abroad we're defeated,
But the end on't, the end on't the Lord above knows.
3
We parted with all our old Mony, to shew
We foolishly hope for a Plenty of new;
But might have remember'd, when we came to the push,
That a Bird in the Hand is worth two in the Bush.
We now like poor Wretches are kept under Hatches,
At Rack and at Manger like Beasts in the Ark;
Since our Burgesses and Knights make us pay for our Lights,
Why should we, why should we be kept in the dark?
