Fugitive Poetry. 1600–1878/Owed to my Creditors
Owed to My Creditors.
In vain I lament what is past.
And pity their woe-begone looks;
Though they grin at the credit they gave,
I know I am in their best books.
To my tailor my breaches of faith,
On my conscience now but lightly sit,
For such lengths in his measures he's gone,
He has given me many a fit.
My bootmaker finding at last
That my soul was too stubborn to suit,
Waxed wroth when he found he had got
Anything but the length of my foot.
My hat-maker cunningly felt
He'd seen many like me before,
So brimful of insolence, vowed
On credit he'd crown me no more.
My baker was crusty and burnt,
When he found himself quite overdone
By a fancy bred chap like myself—
Ay, as cross as a Good Friday's bun.
Next my laundress who washed pretty clean,
In behaviour was dirty and bad;
For into hot water she popped
All the shirts and the dickies I had.
Then my butcher, who'd little at stake,
Most surlily opened his chops,
And swore my affairs out of joint,
So on to my carcase he pops.
In my lodgings exceedingly high,
Though low in the rent, to be sure.
Without warning my landlady seized,
Took my tilings and the key of the door.
Thus cruelly used by the world,
In the Bench I can smile at its hate;
For a time I must alter my style,
For I cannot get out of the gate.
And pity their woe-begone looks;
Though they grin at the credit they gave,
I know I am in their best books.
To my tailor my breaches of faith,
On my conscience now but lightly sit,
For such lengths in his measures he's gone,
He has given me many a fit.
My bootmaker finding at last
That my soul was too stubborn to suit,
Waxed wroth when he found he had got
Anything but the length of my foot.
My hat-maker cunningly felt
He'd seen many like me before,
So brimful of insolence, vowed
On credit he'd crown me no more.
My baker was crusty and burnt,
When he found himself quite overdone
By a fancy bred chap like myself—
Ay, as cross as a Good Friday's bun.
Next my laundress who washed pretty clean,
In behaviour was dirty and bad;
For into hot water she popped
All the shirts and the dickies I had.
Then my butcher, who'd little at stake,
Most surlily opened his chops,
And swore my affairs out of joint,
So on to my carcase he pops.
In my lodgings exceedingly high,
Though low in the rent, to be sure.
Without warning my landlady seized,
Took my tilings and the key of the door.
Thus cruelly used by the world,
In the Bench I can smile at its hate;
For a time I must alter my style,
For I cannot get out of the gate.