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THE SAILOR'S GARLAND 231
We should be paid with great speed.
The taverns we['d] make them to roar, We['d] spend it lite brave jolly tars;
What else should we do on shore ?' |
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THE SAILOR'S GARLAND; OR, THE TICKET BUYER'S LAMENTATION.
To the Tune of Chevy Chase.
God prosper long our noble. King, his fleet and sailors all, And grant that they their pay may have, and pride may have a fall.
Where courage stout and noble blood within the heart doth
reign, There pity soft for others' woes doth pant in every vein.
Our gracious King, by pity moved to do his sailors right, To Parliament did recommend their sad and woful plight.
A usurer in Lothbury, a Jew of high renown,
Hearing the sailors would be paid strait hasted up to town ;
All in his hall the clerks amazed and agents, frighted sore, ' Adieu,' cried out, ' for-ty per cent, Adieu—for evermore.'
The Jew he sighed, 'Alack, my head and heart it acheth much ! But hold,' says he, ' I've got it now. Pray tell me—won't they touch ?
' What, pay the Navy all, d'you say ? Sure that can never be, For then much greater men must lose their trades as well as we.
' A Sanhedrim we straight must call upon a thing so new.
Go summon all, great Shylock first; he's trusty and true blue.'
While yet he spake, lo at the gate, the head of all the tribe, Shylock, appear'd, the most expert at counsel or at bribe.
His chatter and his laugh so loud was heard quite to the door; His belly, of enormous size, came strutting in before. |
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