The Old Story and the New Storey

THE Old Story says : We've another
Young prince who will wed like a man ;
Let us give him, because of his mother,
An extra ten thousand per ann.
She has barely enough for herself, sirs ;
Not five hundred a week is his sum ;
Some of you have vastly more pelf, sirs ;
Let our vote be unanimous, come !

The New Storey l says — (It is mentioned
How, hating such meanness to hear,
The noble array of the pensioned
Assailed him with laughter and jeer) —
He says : Public money should solely
For good public service be spent.
(Dear lords, what a doctrine unholy !
Why it saps at your rights to your rent !)

He says : What I urge 'gainst a wasteful
And unjust proposal like this
Must to many of you be distasteful,
And the wherefore too palpable is ;
Since one hundred and ten of your body,
And one hundred and twenty-six peers,
For no service, or service of shoddy
Keep bleeding us numberless years.

He says : This ten thousand per annum
You would lavish on one wealthy pair —
Many hundred a grandad and grannam
Would keep in a comfort too rare ;
Or in Sunderland — that's my own borough —
A small place — laugh on ! — would secure
Education quite free and quite thorough
Without any rate on the poor.

He says : These same princes as dummies
In army and navy fill posts,
While veterans, scorched up like mummies,
Must starve in the cold like their ghosts.
He says : Sweep away lordly flunkeys,
If you really this money must clutch,
Those bedizened and posturing monkeys —
Your Gold Sticks in Waiting and such.

He says — But fine ears we won't batter
With more of his speech unpolite ;
So we'll give our own view of the matter,
And our view of course is the right.
We say : When your State-ship you're building,
If you will have a gilt figure-head,
Of course you must pay for the gilding ;
We say — there's no more to be said.

It is true that the head a ship carries
In proportion costs little when built ;
It is true that this head never marries
And breeds little heads to be gilt.
Too precious for subjects like these —
Having set up such heads at your pleasure,
You can set them aside when you please.