Forbid it, injuries too long sustained!
Forbid it, rights long lost to be regained!
Come from your holes, concentrate all your powers,
And justice, liberty, and revenge are ours.
Shall that fell despot, man, with tyrant power,
Heap wrong on wrong, increasing every hour
The huge indignities, and we submit?
No! rather let Sedition's fire be lit,
And all the consequences of internal strife—
The loss of blood, of credit, and of life.
And the reaction which we know succeeds,
When the best interests of a country bleeds.
Regardless of all this, divine and human laws,
Up rats and arm! get ready teeth and claws;
Be this our war-cry, "Down with men and buffers!2
'Tis all for freedom! so ne'er heed who suffers!
'Tis not enough that ferrets, Hob and Jill,
Are taught to hunt us out, and dogs to kill
In honest warfare, but by traps we're caught,
And (hear it all of ye) in bags are brought.
Huddled together—nay, suspend your rage—
And foully murdered in a cockpit cage.
Go, search the columns of last Sunday's Bell's,
And note the horrid butchery it tells.
One Shaw, of Bunhill-row, hath got a tyke
(Sure mortal ears ne'er listened to the like),
Who did—oh, sickening and appalling sight—
Destroy two hundred rats on Tuesday night!
And dogs did yelp, and men did shout and laugh.
While this small canine, five pounds and a half,
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Ned Farmer's Scrap Book.
