Another fight will soon begin, And p’rhaps, as some allege, sir, The Liberals will th’ elections win, In that case we must hedge, sir. For should the Tories have to yield, They would no further use be; Oh, wouldn’t my Lord Beaconsfield Rare subject for abuse be! For this the law is we’ll maintain, Until it cease to pay, sir, That whatsoever party reign, We’ll still on the strong side bray, sir! _Truth Christmas Number._ 1879. ―――― BRADLAUGH’S BRAY. In good Victoria’s palmy days, When Chartism was prating, I joined the Democratic craze, And practised stump orating. To teach my mob I never missed That King-made law is bad law, And damn’d be all who dare resist The rise of righteous Bradlaugh. For this is law, I will maintain, Until my dying day, sir, That over Parliament I’ll reign, Or there’ll be the devil to pay, sir. When first my stump career began, Rank heresy I spouted, Belief in God as Lord of man, As lunacy I scouted. Disguised as great “Iconoclast,” In wrangling I waxed foxy, Blew my own trumpet’s brazen blast, And started my new ’doxy. For this is THE true faith, I swear, Nor dare to say me nay, sir, Believe in Bradlaugh, Cromwell’s heir, And for his triumph bray, sir. But finding Atheists weak and thin, I sought a higher mission, And found much greater profit in The vending of sedition. Though mobs can’t think, they shun a bore, They love a bright variety, Which proved to me my forte was more For politics than piety. So this is law I do declare, In this my trying day, sir, That none shall judge me by my acts, Nor yet by what I say, sir. So down with Kings and Queens and Priests, And Church and State and Pensions, And up with Dilke’s Republic, and My grand Freethought Conventions; Saints Malthus, Knowlton, Besant――these Are lights this dark world’s needing, So up with population checks, And down with all good breeding. For if this had but been the law In my good father’s day, sir, One nuisance less of print and jaw, Had not now blocked the way, sir.