Cromwell

They took dead Cromwell from his grave,     And stuck his head on high;     The Merry Monarch and his men,     They laughed as they passed by     The common people cheered and jeered,     To Englands deep disgrace,     The crowds whod neer have dared to look     Live Cromwell in the face.     He came in Englands direst need     With law and fire and sword,     He thrashed her enemies at home     And crushed her foes abroad;     He kept his word by sea and land,     His parliament he schooled,     He made the nations understand     A Man in England ruled!     Van Tromp, with twice the English ships,     And flushed by victory,     A great broom to his masthead bound,     Set sail to sweep the sea.     But Englands ruler was a man     Who needed lots of room,     So Blake soon lowered the Dutchmans tone,     And smashed the Dutchmans broom.     He sent a bill to Tuscany     For sixty thousand pounds,     For wrong done to his subjects there,     And merchants in her bounds.     He sent by Debt Collector Blake,     And, you need but be told     That, by the Duke of Tuscany     That bill was paid in gold.     To pirate ports in Africa     He sent a message grim     To have each captured Englishman     Delivered up to him;     And every ship and cargos worth,     And every boat and gun,     And this, all this, as Dickens says,     Was gloriously done.     Theyd tortured English prisoners     Whod sailed the Spanish Main;     So Cromwell sent a little bill     By Admiral Blake to Spain.     To keep his hand in, by the way.     He whipped the Portuguese;     And he made it safe for English ships     To sail the Spanish seas.     The Protestants in Southern lands     Had long been sore oppressed;     They sent their earnest prayers to Noll     To have their wrongs redressed.     He sent a message to the Powers,     In which he told them flat,     All men must praise God as they chose,     Or he would see to that.     And, when hed hanged the fools at home     And settled foreign rows,     He found the time to potter round     Amongst his pigs and cows.     Of private rows he never spoke,     That grand old Ironsides.     They said a fathers strong heart broke     When Cromwells daughter died.     (They dragged his body from its grave,     His head stuck on a pole,     They threw his wifes and daughters bones     Into a rubbish hole     To rot with those of two whod lived     And fought for Englands sake,     And each one in his own brave way,     Great Pym, and Admiral Blake.)     From Charles to Charles, throughout the world     Old Englands name was high,     And thats a thing no Royalist     Could ever yet deny.     Long shameful years have passed since then,     In spite of Englands boast,     But Englishmen were Englishmen,     While Cromwell carved the roast.     And, in my countrys hour of need,     For it shall surely come,     While run by fools wholl never heed     The beating of the drum.     While baffled by the fools at home,     And threatened from the sea,     Lord! send a man like Oliver,     And let me live to see.