Written in 1645 to the Club-men, by Alex. Brome.
COME your ways,
Bonny boys
Of the town,
For now is your time or never:
Shall your fears
Or your cares
Cast you down?
Hang your wealth
And your health,
Get renown.
We are all undone for ever,
Now the King and the crown
Are tumbling down,
And the realm doth groan with disasters;
And the scum of the land
Are the men that command,
And our slaves are become our masters.
Now our lives,
Children, wives,
And estate,
Are a prey to the lust and plunder,
To the rage
Of our age;
And the fate
Of our land
Is at hand;
’Tis too late
To tread these usurpers under.
First down goes the crown,
Then follows the gown,
Thus levell’d are we by the Roundhead;
While Church and State must
Feed their pride and their lust,
And the kingdom and king be confounded.
Shall we still
Suffer ill
And be dumb,
And let every varlet undo us?
Shall we doubt
Of each lout
That doth come,
With a voice
Like the noise
Of a drum,
And a sword or a buff-coat, to us?
Shall we lose our estates
By plunder and rates,
To bedeck those proud upstarts that swagger?
Rather fight for your meat
Which those locusts do eat,
Now every man’s a beggar.