The Hungry Forties


Thou wants my vote, young man wi' t' carpet-bags,
Weel, sit thee down, an' hark what I've to say.
It's noan so varry oft wer kitchen flags
Are mucked by real live lords down Yelland(1) way.

I've read thy speyks i' t' paper of a neet,
Thou lets a vast o' words flow off thy tongue;
Thou's gotten facts an' figures, plain as t' leet,
An' argiments to slocken(2) owd an' young.

But what are facts an' figures 'side o' truths
We've bowt wi' childer' tears an' brokken lives?
An' what are argiments o' cockered youths
To set agean yon groans o' caitiff(3) wives?

'Twere "hungry forties" when I were a lad,
An' fowks were clemmed, an' weak i' t' airm an' brain;
We lived on demick'd(4) taties, bread gone sad,
An' wakkened up o' neets croodled(5) wi' pain.

When t' quartern loaf were raised to one and four,
We'd watter-brewis, swedes stown out o' t' field;
Farmers were t' landlords' jackals, an' us poor
Tewed in Egyptian bondage unrepealed.