George Gordon Byron

An Ode to the Framers of the Frame Bill

1.

Oh well done Lord E——n! and better done R——r!
⁠Britannia must prosper with councils like yours;
Hawkesbury, Harrowby, help you to guide her,
⁠Whose remedy only must kill ere it cures:
Those villains; the Weavers, are all grown refractory,
⁠Asking some succour for Charity's sake—
So hang them in clusters round each Manufactory,
⁠That will at once put an end to mistake.

2.

The rascals, perhaps, may betake them to robbing,
⁠The dogs to be sure have got nothing to eat—
So if we can hang them for breaking a bobbin,
⁠'T will save all the Government's money and meat:
Men are more easily made than machinery—
⁠Stockings fetch better prices than lives—
Gibbets on Sherwood will heighten the scenery,
⁠Shewing how Commerce, how Liberty thrives!

3.

Justice is now in pursuit of the wretches,
⁠Grenadiers, Volunteers, Bow-street Police,
Twenty-two Regiments, a score of Jack Ketches,
⁠Three of the Quorum and two of the Peace;
Some Lords, to be sure, would have summoned the Judges,
⁠To take their opinion, but that they ne'er shall,
For Liverpool such a concession begrudges,
⁠So now they're condemned by no Judges at all.

4.

Some folks for certain have thought it was shocking,
⁠When Famine appeals and when Poverty groans,
That Life should be valued at less than a stocking,
⁠And breaking of frames lead to breaking of bones.
If it should prove so, I trust, by this token,
⁠(And who will refuse to partake in the hope?)
That the frames of the fools may be first to be broken,
⁠Who, when asked for a remedy, sent down a rope.