"Why is it we toil so?
Where go all the gains?
What do we produce for it,
All our pangs and pains?"
Why it is we toil so,
Is it because, like sheep,
Since our fathers sought the shears,
We the same course keep.
Where go all the gains? Well,
It must be confessed,
First the landlords take the rent,
And the masters take the rest.
What do we produce for it?
Gentlemen! - and then
Imitation snobs who'd be
Like the gentlemen!
"What, is it for such as these
That we suffer thus?
Fuddle-brained and vicious fools,
Vermin venomous?
"What, is that why on the top
Creeps that Royal Louse,
The prince of pheasants and cigars,
Of ballet-girls and grouse?"
Yes, that's why, my Christian friends,
They slave and slaughter us.
England is made a dunghill that
Some bugs may breed and buzz.