Post by Firestick Frank on May 8, 2022 9:08:01 GMT
What’s your favourite ever poem? Here is mine…
The law locks up the man or woman
Who steals the goose off the common
But leaves the greater villain loose
Who steals the common from the goose.
The law demands that we atone
When we take things we do not own
But leaves the lords and ladies fine
Who takes things that are yours and mine.
The poor and wretched don’t escape
If they conspire the law to break;
This must be so but they endure
Those who conspire to make the law.
The law locks up the man or woman
Who steals the goose from off the common
And geese will still a common lack
Till they go and steal it back.
It’s a protest against the “Enclosure Acts” (or privatisation of public land) from the 15th Century onwards. The poem manages, in a few lines, to highlight double standards when it comes to rich and poor/power and peasantry, expose the artificial nature of property rights, and take aim at the idea of state power.
And it does it all in a simple, humourous way.
The law locks up the man or woman
Who steals the goose off the common
But leaves the greater villain loose
Who steals the common from the goose.
The law demands that we atone
When we take things we do not own
But leaves the lords and ladies fine
Who takes things that are yours and mine.
The poor and wretched don’t escape
If they conspire the law to break;
This must be so but they endure
Those who conspire to make the law.
The law locks up the man or woman
Who steals the goose from off the common
And geese will still a common lack
Till they go and steal it back.
It’s a protest against the “Enclosure Acts” (or privatisation of public land) from the 15th Century onwards. The poem manages, in a few lines, to highlight double standards when it comes to rich and poor/power and peasantry, expose the artificial nature of property rights, and take aim at the idea of state power.
And it does it all in a simple, humourous way.
