The Works of John Hookham Frere In Verse and Prose Now First Collected with a Prefatory Memoir by his Nephews W. E. and Sir Bartle Frere |
 | I. |
 |
|
|
THE BUBBLE YEAR. |
| II. |
 | The Works of John Hookham Frere In Verse and Prose |  |
THE BUBBLE YEAR.
Might we not hope, with humble confidence,That finally a benignant Providence
Will extricate the British nation
From her embarrassed situation,
And graciously dispense
An earthquake or a pestilence.
An earthquake would be far the best,
To set the question once for all, at rest;
Sinking the sister isle
At least a statute mile,
With a low, subsiding motion,
Beneath the level of the German Ocean,
302
Into something queer and strange:
Then if their “bones are coral made.”
They may supply the British trade
With an important new commodity:
Besides, when each Papistic churl
Shall have his eye-balls turn'd to pearl,
When “those are pearls which were his eyes.”
When each invaluable ball
Is fish'd to light by British enterprize
And British capital,
To what a premium will the shares arise.
| The Works of John Hookham Frere In Verse and Prose | |