If they, 'mid whom I sported without dread, Were home I would not mind what foe might do, Or fear tax-man Odell would seize my bed To pay the hearth-rate that is overdue. I pray to Him who, in the haughty hour Of Babel, threw confusion on each tongue, That I may see our princes back in power, And see Odell, the tax-collector, hung. THE APOLOGY Do not be distant with me, do not be Angry because I drank deep of your wine, But treat that laughing matter laughingly Because I am a poet, and incline By nature and by art to jollity. Always I loved to see, I will aver, The good red tide lip at the flagon's brim, Sitting half fool and half philosopher, Chatting with every kind of her and him, And shrugged at sneer of money-gatherer. Often enough I trudge by hedge and wall, Too often there's no money in my purse, Nor malice in my mind ever at all, And for my songs no person is the worse But I who give all of my store to all. If busybody spoke to you of it, Say, kindly man, if kindly man do live: The poet only takes his sup and bit, And say: It is no great return to give For his unstinted gift of verse and wit. THE GANG Our fathers must have sinned: we pay for it! Through them the base-born tribe that sold their king Sneaked into power, and in high places sit, And do their will and wish in everything; For they may rob and kill, grieve and disgrace All who are left alive of Eiver's race. They seized with daring guile on rank and pelf, And swore that they would never bend a knee Unto the king: they robbed the Church herself: They stole our princes' lands, and o'er the sea They packed those princes, or drove them away To barren rocks and fields that have no clay. That spawn of base mechanics! who could ne'er, Though Doomsday came, by any art be made Noble, are noble now, and have no care: Snugly they sit and safe and unafraid In stately places, proud as if the mud And slime that swills their veins were princes' blood. Let us be wise and wary of that gang! When they seem
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