The merry brown hares came a-leaping
|
Over the crest of the hill
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Where the clover and corn lay a-sleeping
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Under the moonlight so still
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Leaping so late and so early
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a¢æ?Till under their bite and their tread
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The swedes and the wheat and the barley
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Lay cankered and trampled and dead
|
|
A poacher's poor widow sat sighing
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On the side of the moss-patterned bank
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Where under the gloom of the fir-woods
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One acre of ground laying rank
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She watched over barely grown clover
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Where rabbit or hare never ran
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For the ground that it all covered over
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Hid the blood of a good murdered man
|
|
She thought of the shaded plantation
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And the hares and her husband's own blood
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And the voice of her own indignation
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Rose up to the throne of her God
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There's blood on your new foreign shrubs, Squire
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There's blood on your pointer's cold feet
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There's blood on the game that you sell Squire
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And there's blood on the game that you eat
|
|
You have sold out the labouring man, Squire
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Both body and soul for to shame
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To pay for your seat in the House, Squire
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And to pay for the feed of your game
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You made him a poacher yourself, Squire
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When you'd give not the work nor the meat
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And your barley-fed hares robbed the garden
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At our starving poor little one's feet
|
|
When packed into one tiny chamber
|
Man, mother and little ones lay
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While the rain pattered in on our bride bed
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And the walls barely held out the day
|
When we lay in the heat of the fever
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On the mud and the clay of the floor
|
a¢æ?Till you parted us all for three months, Squire
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And we knocked at the working house door
|
|
So to kennels and liveried varlets
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Where you starved your own daughter of bread
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And worn out with liquor and harlots
|
See your heirs at your feet lying dead
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When you follow them into your heaven
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And your soul rots asleep in the grave
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Then Squire, you will not be forgiven
|
By the free men you took as your slaves
|
|
-----------------
|
The Bad Squire
|
| Chumbawamba |
