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Home  »  A Victorian Anthology, 1837–1895  »  The Working Man’s Song

Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). A Victorian Anthology, 1837–1895. 1895.

John Stuart Blackie 1809–95

The Working Man’s Song

I AM no gentleman, not I!

No bowing, scraping thing!

I bear my head more free and high

Than titled count or king.

I am no gentleman, not I!

No, no, no!

And only to one Lord on high

My head I bow.

I am no gentleman, not I!

No vain and varnish’d thing!

And from my heart, without a die,

My honest thoughts I fling.

I am no gentleman, not I!

No, no, no!

Our stout John Knox was none—and why

Should I be so?

I am no gentleman, not I!

No mincing, modish thing,

In gay saloon a butterfly,

Some wax-doll Miss to wing.

I am no gentleman, not I!

No, no, no!

No moth, to sport in fashion’s eye,

A Bond Street beau.

I am no gentleman, not I!

No bully, braggart thing,

With jockeys on the course to vie,

With bull-dogs in the ring.

I am no gentleman, not I!

No, no, no!

The working man might sooner die

Than sink so low.

I am no gentleman, not I!

No star-bedizen’d thing!

My fathers filch’d no dignity,

By fawning to a king.

I am no gentleman, not I!

No, no, no!

And to the wage of honesty

My rank I owe.

I am no gentleman, not I!

No bowing, scraping thing!

I bear my head more free and high

Than titled count or king.

I am no gentleman, not I!

No, no, no!

And thank the blessed God on high,

Who made me so!