The Poetical Writings of Fitz-Greene Halleck/The Meeting of the Grocers

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The Poetical Works of Fitz-Greene Halleck
3281140The Poetical Works of Fitz-Greene Halleck — The CroakersFitz-Greene Halleck and Joseph Rodman Drake

THE MEETING OF THE GROCERS.

The knights of the firkin are gathered around,
The rag-idols’ rights to assert;
Each gatherer pricks up his ears at the sound,
Town rags are advancing a penny a pound,
While country rags sink in the dirt.

Aghast stand the brokers—the carrying-trade
Is lost if the butter-boys win—
The farmers are quaking, the worst is dismayed,
Omnipotent Fundable trembles afraid,
And Wall Street is all in a din.

’Twasn’t so when the banks in a body prepared
To cut their own corporate throats;
And, biting their thumbs at the farmers, declared
To the thunderstruck dealers in butter and lard,
They would handle no more of their notes.

Oh, Fundable! Fundable! look to thine own,
Now, now, let thy management shine;
I fear the young Franklin will worry thee down,
And if all the bad paper be kicked out of town,
Dear Fundable! where will be thine?

D.