In eighteen twenty Deacon Thin Feu’d the land and fenced it in, And laid his broad foundations down About a furlong out of town.
Early and late the work went on. The carts were toiling ere the dawn; The mason whistled, the hodman sang; Early and late the trowels rang; And Thin himself came day by day To push the work in every way. An artful builder, patent king Of all the local building ring, Who was there like him in the quarter For mortifying brick and mortar, Or pocketing the odd piastre By substituting lath and plaster? With plan and two-foot rule in hand, He by the foreman took his stand, With boisterous voice, with eagle glance To stamp upon extravagance. Far thrift of bricks and greed of guilders, He was the Bonaparte of Builders.
The foreman, a desponding creature, Demurred to here and there a feature: “For surely, sir—with your permeession— Bricks here, sir, in the main parteetion …” The builder goggled, gulped and stared, The foreman’s services were spared. Thin would not count among his minions A man of Wesleyan opinions.
“Money is money,” so he said. “Crescents are crescents, trade is trade. Pharaohs and emperors in their seasons Built, I believe, for different reasons— Charity, glory, piety, pride— To pay the men, to please a bride, To use their stone, to spite their neighbours, Not for a profit on their labours. They built to edify or bewilder; I build because I am a builder. Crescent and street and square I build, Plaster and paint and carve and gild. Around the city see them stand, These triumphs of my shaping hand, With bulging walls, with sinking floors, With shut, impracticable doors, Fickle and frail in every part, And rotten to their inmost heart. There shall the simple tenant find Death in the falling window-blind,