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Friend of Humanity NEEDY Knife-grinder! whither are you going? | |
| Rough is the road; your wheel is out of order— | |
| Bleak blows the blast; your hat has got a hole in’t. | |
| So have your breeches! | |
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| Weary Knife-grinder! little think the proud ones | 5 |
| Who in their coaches roll along the turnpike | |
| Road, what hard work ’tis crying all day, ‘Knives and | |
| Scissors to grind O!’ | |
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| Tell me, Knife-grinder, how you came to grind knives? | |
| Did some rich man tyrannically use you? | 10 |
| Was it some squire? or parson of the parish? | |
| Or the attorney? | |
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| Was it the squire, for killing of his game? or | |
| Covetous parson, for his tithes distraining? | |
| Or roguish lawyer, made you lose your little | 15 |
| All in a lawsuit? | |
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| Have you not read the ‘Rights of Man,’ by Tom Paine? | |
| Drops of compassion tremble on my eyelids, | |
| Ready to fall, as soon as you have told your | |
| Pitiful story. | 20 |
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Knife-grinder Story? God bless you! I have none to tell, sir: | |
| Only last night a-drinking at the Chequers, | |
| This poor old hat and breeches, as you see, were | |
| Torn in a scuffle. | |
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| Constables came up for to take me into | 25 |
| Custody; they took me before the justice; | |
| Justice Oldmixon put me in the parish | |
| Stocks for a vagrant. | |
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| I should be glad to drink your honour’s health in | |
| A pot of beer, if you will give me sixpence; | 30 |
| But for my part, I never love to meddle | |
| With politics, sir. | |
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Friend of Humanity I give thee sixpence! I will see thee damned first— | |
| Wretch! whom no sense of wrongs can rouse to vengeance— | |
| Sordid, unfeeling, reprobate, degraded, | 35 |
Spiritless outcast!
(Kicks the Knife-grinder, overturns his wheel, and exit in a transport of republican enthusiasm and universal philanthropy.) | |
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