a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 #

richard mitchley - john cleveland - the rebel scot lyrics

how, providence? and yet a scottish crew?
then madam nature wears black patches too!
what, shall our nation be in bondage thus
unto a land that truckles under us?
ring the bells backward! i am all on fire
not all the buckets in a country quire
shall quench my rage. a poet should be feared
when angry, like a comet’s flaming beard
and where’s the stoic can his wrath appease
to see his country sick of pym’s disease?
by scotch invasion to be made a prey
to such pigwidgeon myrmidons as they?
but that there’s charm in verse, i would not quote
the name of scot without an antidote;
unless my head were red, that i might brew
invention there that might be poison too
were i a drowsy judge whose dismal note
disgorgeth halters as a juggler’s throat
doth ribbons; could i in sir empiric’s tone
speak pills in phrase and quack destruction;
or roar like marshall, that geneva bull
h+ll and d+mnation a pulpit full;
yet to express a scot, to play that prize
not all those mouth+grenadoes can suffice
before a scot can properly be curst
i must like hocus swallow daggers first
come, keen iambics, with your badger’s feet
and badger+like bite till your t++th do meet
help, ye tart satirists, to imp my rage
with all the scorpions that should whip this age
scots are like witches; do but whet your pen
scratch till the blood come, they’ll not hurt you then
now, as the martyrs were enforced to take
the shape of beasts, like hypocrites at stake
i’ll bait my scot so, yet not cheat your eyes:
a scot within a beast is no disguise
no more let ireland brag; her harmless nation
fosters no venom since the scot’s plantation;
nor can our feigned antiquity obtain:
since they came in, england hath wolves again
the scot that kept the tower might have shown
within the grate of his own breast alone
the leopard and the panther, and engrossed
what all those wild collegiates had cost
the honest high+shoes in their termly fees;
first to the salvage lawyer, next to these
nature herself doth scotchmen beasts confess
making their country such a wilderness:
a land that brings in question and suspense
god’s omnipresence, but that charles came thence
but that montrose and crawford’s loyal band
atoned their sin and christened half their land
nor is it all the nation hath these sports:
there is a church as well as kirk of scots
as in a picture where the squinting paint
shows fiend on this side, and on that side saint
he that saw h+ll in’s melancholy dream
and in the twilight of his fancy’s theme
scared from his sins, repented in a fright
had he viewed scotland, had turned proselyte
a land where one may pray with curst intent
oh may they never suffer banishment!
had cain been scot, god would have changed his doom:
not forced him wander, but confined him home!
like jews they spread, and as infection fly
as if the devil had ubiquity
hence ’tis they live at rovers and defy
this or that place, rags of geography
they’re citizens of the world; they’re all in all;
scotland’s a nation epidemical
and yet they ramble not to learn the mode
how to be dressed, or how to lisp abroad;
to return knowing in the spanish shrug
or which of the dutch states a double jug
resembles most in belly or in beard
(the card by which the mariners are steered)
no, the scots+errant fight and fight to eat;
their ostrich stomachs make their swords their meat
nature with scots as tooth+drawers hath dealt
who use to string their t++th upon their belt
yet wonder not at this their happy choice
the serpent’s fatal still to paradise
sure, england hath the hemorrhoids, and these
on the north postern of the patient seize
like leeches; thus they physically thirst
after our blood, but in the cure shall burst!

let them not think to make us run o’ the score
to purchase villenage, as once before
call them good subjects, buy them gingerbread

not gold, nor acts of grace, ’tis steel must tame
the stubborn scot; a prince that would reclaim
rebels by yielding, doth like him, or worse
who saddled his own back to shame his horse

was it for this you left your leaner soil
thus to lard israel with egypt’s spoil?
they are the gospel’s life+guard; but for them
the garrison of new jerusalem
what would the brethren do? the cause! the cause!
sack+possets and the fundamental laws!

lord! what a godly thing is want of shirts!
how a scotch stomach and no meat converts!
they wanted food and raiment; so they took
religion for their seamstress and their cook
unmask them well; their honors and estate
as well as conscience, are sophisticate
shrive but their titles and their moneys poise
a laird and twenty pence pr+nounced with noise
when contrued, but for a plain yeoman go
and a good sober twopence, and well so
hence, then, you proud impostors; get you gone
you picts in gentry and devotion;
you scandal to the stock of verse, a race
able to bring the gibbet in disgrace
hyperbolus by suffering did traduce
the ostracism and shamed it out of use
the indian that heaven did forswear
because he heard some spaniards were there
had he but known what scots in h+ll had been
he would, erasmus+like, have hung between
my muse hath done. a voider for the nonce
i wrong the devil should i pick their bones
that dish is his; for when the scots decease
h+ll, like their nation, feeds on barnacles
a scot, when from the gallow+tree got loose
drops into styx and turns a solan goose

- richard mitchley lyrics

Random Lyrics

HOT LYRICS