A Fair Offer From John Bull To Miss Columbia
(From Punch)
SHALL we kiss and be friends? Why not? Sister Columbia
No more ugly faces let you and me pull;
Though we both have our tempers, our worries, and troubles,
Let “bygones be bygones” for me, says John Bull.
Ye must own that you’ve given me a deal of bad language,
And have been far to free with your bunkum and brag;
That I’ll pocket, if now, like a sensible woman,
You’ll disclaim your friend Wilkes and salute the old flag.
Fools may sneer and call family feelings all humbug,
But I
[feel]
that one blood in the veins of me flows;
Our tongues are the same, though I don’t like your fashion
Of talking (as you’d make me pay) through the nose.
We snarled and we scratched in the days of our folly,
When you wanted to leave me and start for yourself;
To think of those times makes me quite melancholy ---
The blood that we wasted – the temper and pelf
When I vowed that I’d tame you, and make you knock under,
And you dared me, and bit like a vixen as well;
I did think by this time we had both seen out blunder;
Meant to live as good friends and in peace buy and sell.
But of late I can’t think what the deuce has come o’er you
First you turn your own house out of the window, and then
Declare that I want to o’erreach you and floor you ---
Stop my ships, seize my passengers, bully my men!
I can stand a great deal from my own blood-relations,
And I know that your troubles, your temper have soured;
But I can’t take a blow in the face of all nations,
And consent to see law by brute force overpowered.