For who's to furnish the supplies
For such a giant enterprise?
To put a Mad-house up would come,
Believe me, to a pretty sum,
If all whom need and merit fitted,
Should be within its walls admitted.
We must not build for our caprice,
But note Time's current as it glides;—
The world moves on with giant strides,
Last year abundance, famine this;
You see to what a monstrous girth
The folks' necessities have swell'd,
Talents for everything on earth,
Headlong by seven-league boots propell'd,
Are swarming madly to the birth.
Thus it would be too dear a jest
To build posterity a nest
And let self, wife, and children go;
This tooth, I say, we can't afford:
Out with it therefore, by the Lord!
Brand.
And then, there's the great Hall, you know,
For any madder than the rest.
The Mayor.
[Delighted.]
Yes, it would mostly be to spare!
Why, Brand, you've hit the nail-head there!
If fortunate our project's fate is,
We get to boot—a Mad-house gratis;
Here, shelter'd by the selfsame roof,
And by the selfsame flag defended,
All the essential strands are blended
That tinge and tone our social woof.
