Safe and Sound
Safe and Sound - meaning Summary
Money and Social Injustice
The poem adopts a colloquial speaker, Nunty Cormorant, who mocks financiers and moneylenders profiting from 'hot air' while workers suffer. It contrasts wealthy borrowers and usurers enjoying comforts with stalwart laborers on poor relief, blaming financial practices and a detached system that even links royal control of coin to continued hardship. The tone is ironic and political, using plain voice to expose economic inequality and the social effects of usury.
Read Complete AnalysesMy name is Nunty Cormorant And my finance is sound, I lend you Englishmen hot air At one and three the pound. I lend you Englishmen hot air And I get all the beef While you stalwart sheep of freedom Are on the poor relief. Wot oh! my buxom hearties, What ain't got work no more And don't know what bug is a-bitin' To keep your feelin's sore, There is blokes in automobiles And their necks sunk into fur That keep on gettin' usury To make 'em cosier. I read these fellers puts it Most tidily away And then lends out their printed slips To keep the wolf away From the vaults and combination Safes in Thread and Needle street. I wouldn't 'ave the needle If I had more grub to eat. Oh the needle is your portion, My sufferin' fellow men, Till the King shall take the notion To own his coin again.
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