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(1664–1672)
IF wars were won by feasting, | |
| Or victory by song, | |
| Or safety found in sleeping sound, | |
| How England would be strong! | |
| But honour and dominion | 5 |
| Are not maintainèd so, | |
| They’re only got by sword and shot, | |
| And this the Dutchmen know! | |
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| The moneys that should feed us, | |
| You spend on your delight, | 10 |
| How can you then have sailor-men | |
| To aid you in your fight? | |
| Our fish and cheese are rotten, | |
| Which makes the scurvy grow— | |
| We cannot serve you if we starve, | 15 |
| And this the Dutchmen know! | |
| |
| Our ships in every harbour | |
| Be neither whole nor sound, | |
| And, when we seek to mend a leak, | |
| No oakum can be found, | 20 |
| Or, if it is, the caulkers, | |
| And carpenters also, | |
| For lack of pay have gone away, | |
| And this the Dutchmen know! | |
| |
| Mere powder, guns, and bullets, | 25 |
| We scarce can get at all, | |
| Their price was spent in merriment | |
| And revel at Whitehall, | |
| While we in tattered doublets | |
| From ship to ship must row, | 30 |
| Beseeching friends for odds and ends— | |
| And this the Dutchmen know! | |
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| No King will heed our warnings, | |
| No Court will pay our claims— | |
| Our King and Court for their disport | 35 |
| Do sell the very Thames! | |
| For, now De Ruyter’s topsails, | |
| Off naked Chatham show, | |
| We dare not meet him with our fleet— | |
| And this the Dutchmen know! | 40 |
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