Oh! England’s the gem of the waters,
The pride of the foam-crested sea!
And her brave sons and fair smiling daughters
Are always contented and free!
Unknown are all want and starvation;
Her subjects are strangers to vice;
And the bulwarks of this model nation
Are Calcraft and Governor Price!
Wherever this proud nation’s standard
Unfurls its red folds to the light,
Its bearers you’ll find are the vanguard
Of freedom, and progress, and right.
Barbarian tribes, by their teaching,
Her soldiers reclaim in a trice;
Oh, there’s nothing can equal the preaching
Of Calcraft and Governor Price!
From the Ind to the banks of the Shannon,
Wherever their footsteps have trod,
With the aid of the bayonet and cannon
They’ve planted the altar of God!
And the teachers of heretic notions
Have been silent and quiet as mice,
For fear they should pay their devotions
At the shrine of grim Calcraft and Price!
Oh, lives there a slave who dare utter
A word ’gainst the laws of the realm?
Or breathes there a serf who would mutter
A thought ’gainst the “men at the helm”?
If he’s English, his faults they’ll pass over
With a sound word or two of advice;
But if Irish, he soon will discover
The logic of Calcraft and Price!
Then kneel, comrades, kneel, and thank heaven
You’re subjects of Britain’s great throne,
When, horror! you might have been given
A Republican birthright to own!
Thank God, that your blood is untainted,
You’re subjects of England—how nice!—
You’ve a chance of yet being acquainted
With Calcraft or Governor Price!