The Vagabond and Other Poems from Punch by R. C. Lehmann
page 16 of 84 (19%)
page 16 of 84 (19%)
|
Since ever the Darville race began,
Pompous and purple-faced and proud; With a portly girth and a voice so loud You might have heard it a mile away When he cheered the hounds on a hunting day. He was hard on dissenters and such encroachers, He was hard on sinners and hard on poachers; He talked of his rights as one who knew That the pick of the earth to him was due: The right to this and the right to that, To the humble look and the lifted hat; The right to scold or evict a peasant, The right to partridge and hare and pheasant; The right to encourage discontent By raising a hard-worked farmer's rent; The manifest right to ride to hounds Through his own or anyone else's grounds; The right to eat of the best by day And to snore the whole of the night away; For his motto, as often he explained, Was "A Darville holds what a Darville gained." He tried to be just, but that may be Small merit in one who has most things free; And his neighbours averred, When they heard the word, "Old Darville's a just man, is he? Bust his Gills, we could do without his justice!" II |
|