See the Ministerial bills, Burly bills, With what prolonged expectancy their introduction thrills! Through the country far and wide, Their friends exult with pride; Too much horrified to speak, Their opponents only shriek In affright, In a clamourous appealing to the wisdom of the House―― In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic House. They declare the bills a chouse, And affirm they will, by _nous_, Rouse the country now or never, By a resolute endeavour, To resist the pale-faced premier, With his bills, bills, bills, While each party-leader drills For the fight His forces great or small To enfranchise or enthral The country on the great division night; And the public hardly knows, Mid the wrangling And the jangling, How the danger ebbs and flows, But each newspaper instils Into readers, By its leaders, All its own views of the bills,―― Its own views of the pestilent or patriotic bills, Of the bills, bills, bills, bills, Bills, bills, bills, The stupendous and tremendous public bills. See the sickly autumn bills, Dying bills, What a flood of penitence each moralist distils From their slow but sure decay, As the session wears away, From the melancholy lesson that they teach; For every dying scheme Is in its turn the theme Of a speech, And is tediously debated Until hopelessly belated, Overthrown, And its mover prosing, prosing, In a muffled monotone, Feels a glory in disclosing All its merits little known. In the spring he moves the bills, And clears his voice and swills From a tumbler set beside him, While his enemies deride him, And his friends cry out, “Hear, hear,” And he wins a feeble cheer, Now and then Only, when With brows knit in a frown, His arm sways up and down, Keeping time, time, time, In a sort of Runic rhyme, To the moving of the bills: Of the bills, To the solemn exposition of the bills, Till at last the daylight lengthens, And the summer sunshine strengthens, And finally it grills The members in their places, So sadly, with long faces, They consent to slay their bills, To abandon all their bills; All their bills, bills, bills, To massacre their bills, Though sorely ’gainst their wills.