They sold the chairs, they took the bed, and went;

A fiend’s look after them the husband sent;

His thin wife held him faintly, but in vain;

She saw the alehouse in his scowl of pain —

Hurrah, for bread-tax’d England!

Upon her pregnant womb her hand she laid,

Then stabb’d her living child! and shriek’d, dismay’d —

"Oh, why had I a mother!" wildly said

That saddest mother, gazing on the dead —

Hurrah for bread-tax’d England!

Slowly she turn’d, and sought the silent room —

Her last-born child’s lone dwellingplace and tomb!

Because they could not purchase earth and prayer,

The dear dead boy had long lain coffin’d there! —

Hurrah for bread-tax’d England!

But that boy hath a sister — where is she?

Dying, where none a cherub fall’n may see: —

"Mother! O come!" she sobs, with stifled groan,

In that blest isle, where pity turns to stone —

Hurrah for bread-tax’d England!

Before the judge, the childless stood amazed,

With none to say, “My Lord! the wretch is crazed”.

Crowds saw her perish, but all eyes were dry;

Drunk, in the crowd, her husband saw her die!

Hurrah for bread-tax’d England!

Around the murderer’s wrists they lock the chain:

What, tyrant? whom hath Rapine’s victim slain

The widow, hunger-stung and sorrow-bent,

Who ask’d, with tears, her lodger’s weekly rent!

Hurrah for bread-tax’d England!

O Wholesale Dealers in waste, want, and war!

Would that your deeds were written! — and they are!

Written and graved, on minds and hearts oppress’d;

Stamp’d deep, and blood-burnt-in, o’er realms unbless’d! —

Hurrah for bread-tax’d England!