Anonymous: "Strip Me Naked, or Royal Gin for Ever. A Picture"

STRIP ME NAKED, OR ROYAL GIN FOR EVER.  A PICTURE.

I must, I will have gin! – that skillet take,
Pawn it.  –No more I’ll roast, or boil or bake.
This juice immortal will each want supply;
Starve on, ye brats! so I but bung my eye. (*drink my dram)
Starve?  No!  This gin ev’n mother’s milk excels,
Paints the pale cheeks, and hunger’s darts repels.
The skillet’s pawned already?  Take this cap;
Round my bare head I’ll yon brown paper wrap.
Ha! half my petticoat was torn away
By dogs (I fancy) as I maudlin lay.
How the wind whistles through each broken pane!
Through the wide-yawning roof how pours the rain!
My bedstead’s cracked; the table goes hip-hop. –
But see! The gin!  Come, come, though cordial drop!
Thou sovereign balsam to my longing heart!
Thou husband, children, all!  We must not part.

Drinks.
Delicious!  O!  Down the red lane it goes;
Now I’m a queen, and trample on my woes.
Inspired by gin, I’m ready for the road;
Could shoot my man, or fire the King’s abode.
Ha! my brain’s cracked. –The room turns round and round;
Down drop the platters, pans: I’m on the ground.
My tattered gown slips from me. –What care I?
I was born naked, and I’ll naked die.

--Anonymous, 1751 publication

Source:
Lonsdale’s The New Oxford Book of Eighteenth-Century Verse (1984)

*See also William Hogarth's socio-political prints from that some year--1751--"Beer Street" and "Gin Lane".