By Martin Green
In Thetford Thomas Paine was born
A day that heralded the dawn
Of revolutions that shook the world
When freedom’s banner was unfurled
First in America then France
When liberty learned to dance.
For while he plied his trade
Making stays for wife and maid;
He lost a wife and then began
To take the post of excuse man.
He moved to Lewes, found a wife,
Took up another roll in life.
He wrote a paper, cost him dear,
His job, his wife, a badger’s jeer.
Next to America he sailed
Turning his back on what had failed.
Benjamin Franklin was the hand
That sent him to the promised land.
There came the call – ‘Independence’.
Which he distilled in Common Sense –
‘These are the times to try men’s souls’
Identified America’s goals.
A bridge of iron was his next plan
To aid transport for everyman.
To Europe he returned and where
Revolution was in the air.
In France the Bastille was destroyed
All common people overjoyed.
Edmund Burke’s Reflections came
Saying the people were to blame
Tom Paine then wrote Rights of Man
And from the printing press it ran.
In one lifetime, of honour shorn,
Two Republics had been born,
Tom Paine was midwife to them both
Had witnessed freedom take its oath
In America where he had died
Only two or three there sighed.
William Cobbett stole his bones
An act no memory condones;
We do not know now where they lay
His words will greet each living day.