Why good people all, at what do you pry?

Why good people all, at what do you pry?
Is't the stump of my arm, or my leg?
Or the place where I lost my good-looking eye?
Or is it to see me beg?
Lord love you hard fortune is nothing at all,
And he's but a fool and a dunce
Who expects, when he's running full butt 'gainst a wall,
Not to get a good rap on the sconce.
If beg, borrow, or steal, be the choice of mankind,
Surely I choose the best of the three;
Besides, as times go, what a comfort to find
That in this bad world there's some charity.

For a soldier I listed, to grow great in fame,
And be shot at for sixpence a day;
Lord help the poor poultry wherever I came,
For how could I live on my pay?
I went to the wars, to fight the king's foes,
Where the bullets came whistling by,
Till they swiv'led three ribs, broke the bridge of my nose,
Queer'd my napper, and knock'd out my eye:
Well what of all this, I'd my legs and my arms,
And at Chelsea to lay up was free,
Where my pipe I could smoak, talk of battles and storms,
And bless his good majesty's charity.

But thinking it shameful to live at my ease,
Away, while the frolic was warm,
In search of good fortune, I sails the salt seas,
And so loses my leg and my arm:
With two strings to my bow, I now thought myself sure,
But such is the fortune of war,
As a lobster at Greenwich they shew'd me the door,
At Chelsea they call'd me a tar:—
So falling to nothing between these two stools,
I, the whole world before me, was free
To ask comfort from misers, and pity from fools,
And live on that air, men's charity.

And what now of all this here patter at last,
How many who hold their heads high,
And in fashion's fine whirligig fly round so fast,
Are but beggars as well as I!
The courtier he begs for a snug sinecure,
For a smile beg your amorous elves,
Churchwardens hand the plate, and beg round for the poor,
Just to pamper and fatten themselves:
Thus we're beggars throughout the whole race of mankind,
As by daily experience we see;
And, as times go, what a comfort to find
That in this bad world there's some charity.