Classic Poem

Under this stone
Lies a Reverend Drone,
To Tyburn well known;
Who preached against sin
With a terrible grin,
In which some may think, that he acted but oddly,
Since he lived by the wicked, and not by the godly.
In time of great need,
In case he were feed,
He'd teach one to read
Old pot-hooks and scrawls,
As ancient as Paul's:
But if no money came,
You might hang for old Sam,
And, foundered in psalter;
Be tied to a halter.
This priest was well hung,
I mean with a tongue,
And bold sons of vice
Would disarm in a trice;
And draw tears from a flint,
Or the Devil was in't.
If a sinner came him nigh
With soul black as chimney,
And had but the sense
To give him the pence,
With a little church-pant:
He'd make him a saint.
He understood physic,
And cured cough and phthisic,
And, in short, all the ills
That we find in the bills,
With a sovereign balm,
The world calls a psalm.
Thus his Newgate birds once in the space of a moon,
Though they lived to no purpose, they died to some tune.
In death was his hope,
For he lived by a rope.
Yet this, by the way,
In his praise we may say,
That, like a true friend,
He his flock did attend,
Ev'n to the worlds's end,
And cared not to start
From sledge, or from cart,
Till he first saw them wear
Knots under their ear;
And merrily swing,
In a well twisted string
But if any died hard,
And left no reward,
As I told you before,
He'd enhance their old score,
And kill them again
With his murd'ring pen.
Thus he kept sin in awe,
And supported the law;
But, oh! cruel fate!
So unkind, though I say't,
Last week, to our grief,
Grim Death, that old thief
Alas! and alack!
Had the boldness to pack
This old priest on his back,
And whither he's gone,
Is not certainly known,
But a man may conclude,
Without being rude,
That Orthodox Sam
His flock would not sham;
And to shew himself to 'em a pastor most civil,
As he led, so he followed 'em all to the Devil.