A Legend of Windsor
A song for the Queen! our gracious Queen,
Who giveth her subjects bread!
Paupers! throw up your caps in the air;
Little for the Poor laws ye need care,
For the Queen will see you fed.
In Windsor Palace, ‘neath plate and chalice,
The many tables groan:
The Queen has eaten and drunk her fill;
And she thinks (thought cometh, do what you will)
How the children of Famine moan.
The thought it was one too wo-begone
For a Queen’s digestive powers:
She had never a wink of sleep that night;
She had time to think, by the morning light,
Of the world a “State” devours.
The very next day, scarce the Dean could pray
For a blessing on the meat,
When the Queen stood up with a pleasant face;
Thought she, it would be a much better grace
To give the Poor folk to eat.
So her Grace spoke out, not round about
But straightway to the point:
Quoth she-“Lord Steward! methinks you carve
Too recklessly, while our subjects starve!
Good Lord! how you hack the joint!
“Is there never a hound in the royal ground
Would be glad of these dainty scraps?
Who knows but some unfed human thing,
Worn, and naked and perishing,
Might care for them-perhaps!”
“There is never a hound upon royal ground
But is sleekly overfed;
To be sure there are poor in Windsor town,
Paupers with misery overgrown;”
Says the Queen-“Give them the bread!-
“The dogs love meat; it would be no treat
To dish for them the crumbs:
There’s a race, I think, call’d the Skilly-fed;
Suppose you give them the broken bread,
To any one that comes?”
At the Queen’s command, now every hand
Is grabbling on the floor:
The fat dogs sleep while the courtly rout
Sweep up the crumbs, and fling them out
To the paupers round the door.
And day by day-newspapers say-
The Royal bounties pour:
Our gracious Queen so giveth a zest
To pauper meals, and thankful breast
To-thirty slaves or more.
Yet some will doubt, if a hearty shout
From Windsor flies to Heaven
For the Royal Lady, whose bounteous heart
Daily returneth so SMALL A PART
Of all from the pauper riven.
A story is told of a traveller bold
Who, being in want of food,
Cut off and ate the tail of his hound,
Returned him the bone, and strangely found
The brute had no gratitude!
From a recent number of the Court journal we learn that
the Queen, in consideration of the sufferings of her
starving subjects, has been “graciously pleased” that the
crumbs of bread from the Royal tables should be given to
the Poor, instead of being thrown into the dust-bin.
(Ernest Jones)
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Based on Topics: World Poems, Night Poems, Light Poems, Mind Poems, Faces Poems, Kings & Queens Poems, Thought & Thinking Poems, Sleep Poems, Morning Poems, Children Poems, Doubt & Skepticism PoemsBased on Keywords: windsor, recklessly, unfed, consideration, she-, paupers, returneth, digestive, overfed, queen-, sleekly
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