You ask me why, though ill at ease, + 

Within this region I subsist, + 

Where all defaulters fill the fist + 

Ere sailing o’er the western seas. + 

It is a land where one may kill + 

With sober-sided freedom⁠—bruise + 

And shoot and stab whome’er he choose, + 

And thugs may wreak their own sweet will. + 

A land of such misgovernment + 

That Justice here has not a frown, + 

And greed still broadens slowly down, + 

From Scavenger to President; + 

Where Faction gathers to a head, + 

And in his greasy, foulest thought + 

Sets law and order all at naught⁠— + 

Goes in for anarchy instead. + 

If banded unions prosecute + 

Our unions like the deuce, and I’m + 

About to be had up for crime, + 

Or made to keep my clapper mute; + 

And Power should take from purse and till, + 

The gains that I appropriate + 

From every coffer of the State, + 

And I to fight have not the will, + 

Then waft me from the harbor south, + 

Wild winds! I seek a safer sky, + 

Where I can plunder still, and I + 

Can still shoot off my loaded mouth. + 