History & Politics
The Royal Cockneys in America
From The Poems of Philip Freneau, vol. 3 (1907)
Why travel so far from your insular home,
Ye cockneys of London, and all in a foam,
To talk, and to talk, with coxcombical phiz,
And tell what a nuisance democracy is:
Twas a lesson we learn'd
When you were concern'd
In wishing success to the vast preparations
To conquer and pillage the royal-plantations.
We Americans far from your king-ridden isle
Do humbly beseech you, all democrat haters,
For fear that your bodies or souls you defile,
Would fairly go off, with your lies and your satires:
The monarch you worship requests your assistance,
And how can you help him at such a long distance?
Tis an Englishman's creed,
And they all have agreed
That, out of old England, there's nothing, they swear,
That can with old England--dear England--compare;
So, away to old England, or we'll send you there.
A swarm is arrived from the hives of the east,
Determined to sap the republic's foundation;
And who is their leader, their scribe, and their priest?
Why, Porcupine Peter,
The democrat-eater,
Transported by Pitt, at the charge of the nation,
To preach to the demos a new revelation.
His patrons in England, and some who are here,
Consented to join in his sink of scurrility,
And gave him, tis certain, four thousand a year
To print a damn'd libel, to please our nobility:
Where I--is the hero of all that is said
I--Corporal Cobbett-a man of the blade!
If his countrymen thought
That for nothing we fought
And they mean to regain, by the aid of his press,
A country they lost, to their shame and disgrace,
Let them fairly engage
In some liberal page:
We can give them an answer, not relish'd by some,
Who will see their friend Peter go, whimpering, home.
Cite this poem
MLA
Freneau, Philip. “The Royal Cockneys in America.” Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/freneau/259/.
Chicago
Freneau, Philip. “The Royal Cockneys in America.” Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/freneau/259/.
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