Ennobling every act and air,
With just, and generous, and sincere.
Accomplish'd thus, his next resort
is to the council and the court,
Where virtue is in least repute,
And interest the one pursuit ;
Where right and wrong are bought and sold,
Barter'd for beauty, and for gold;
Here manly virtue, even here,
Pleas'd in the person of a peer,
A peer; a scarcely-bearded youth,
Who talk'd of justice and of truth,
Of innocence the surest guard,
Tales here forgot, or yet unheard;
That he alone deserv'd esteem,
Who was the man he wish'd to seem;
Call'd it unmanly and unwise,
To lurk behind a mean disguise;
(Give fraudful vice the mask and screen,
'Tis virtue's interest to be seen;)
Call'd want of shame a want of sense,
And found, in blushes, eloquence.
Thus, acting what he taught so well,
He drew dumb Merit from her cell,
Led with amazing art along
The bashful dame, and loos'd her tongue;
And, whilst he made her value known,
Yet more display'd and rais'd his own.
Thus young, thus proof to all temptations,
He rises to the highest stations
(For where high honour is the prize,
True virtue has a right to rise):
Let courtly slaves low bend the knee
To wealth and vice in high degree:
Exalted worth disdains to owe
Its grandeur to its greatest foe.
Now rais'd on high, see Virtue shows
The godlike ends for which he rose ;
For him, let proud ambition know
The height of glory here below,
Grandeur, by goodness made complcat
To bless, is truly to be great!
He taught how men to honour rise,
Like gilded vapours to the skies,
Which, howsoever they display
Their glory from the god of day,
Their noblest use is to abate
His dangerous excess of beat,
To shield the infant fruits and flowers,
And bless the earth with genial showers.
Now change the scene; a nobler care
Demands him in a higher sphere 1:
Distress of nations calls him hence,
Permitted so by Providence;
For models, made to mend our kind,
To no one clime should be confin'd;
And manly Virtue, like the Sun,
His course of glorious toils should run;
Alike diffusing in his flight
Congenial joy, and life, and light.
Pale Envy sickens, Errour flies,
And Discord in his presence dies;
Oppression hides with guilty dread,
And Merit rears her drooping head;
The arts revive, the vallies sing,
And winter softens into spring:
1 Lord Carteret had the honour of mediating peace for Sweden with Denmark and with the Czar.
The wondering world, where'er he moves,
With new delight looks up and loves;
One sex consenting to admire,
Nor less the other to desire;
Whilst he, though seated on a throne,
Confines his love to one alone;
The rest condemn'd, with rival voice
Repining, do applaud his choice.
Fame now reports, the Western Isle
Is made his mansion for a while,
Whose anxious natives night and day
(Happy beneath his righteous sway)
Weary the gods with ceaseless prayer,
To bless him, and to keep him there;
And claim it as a debt from fate,
Too lately found, to lose him late.
ON THE UPRIGHT JUDGE
WHO CONDEMNED THE DRAPIER'S PRINTES. THE church I hate, and have good reason; For there my grandsire cut his weazand: He cut his weazand at the altar; I keep my gullet for the halter.
IN church your grandsire cut his throat:
To do the job, too long he tarry'd;
He should have had my hearty vote,
To cut his throat before he marry'd.
I'm not the grandson of that ass Quin 1;
Nor can you prove it, Mr. Pasquin.
My grand-dame had gallants by twenties,
And bore my mother by a 'prentice.
This when my grandsire knew, they tell us he
In Christ-Church cut his throat for jealousy.
And, since the alderman was mad you say,
Then I must be so too, ex traduce.
BY DR. SWIFT ÅND HIS FRIENDS,
WRITTEN IN OR ABOUT THE YEAR 1724.
IN youth exalted high in air,
Or bathing in the waters fair,
Nature to form me took delight,
And clad my body all in white.
My person tall, and slender waist, On either side with fringes grac'd; Till me that tyrant, man, espy'd,
And dragg'd me from my mother's side:
No wonder now I look so thin;
The tyrant stript me to the skin:
My skin he flay'd, my hair he cropt;
At head and foot my body lopt;
And then, with heart more hard than stone,
He pick'd my marrow from the bone.
To vex me more, he took a freak
To slit my tongue, and make me speak:
But, that which wonderful appears,
Í speak to eyes, and not to ears.
He oft employs me in disguise,
And makes me tell a thousand lies:
To me he chiefly gives in trust
To please his malice or his lust:
From me no secret he can hide;
I see his vanity and pride:
And my delight is to expose
His follies to his greatest foes.
All languages I can command,
Yet not a word I understand.
Without my aid, the best divine
In learning would not know a line:
The lawyer must forget his pleading;
The scholar could not show his reading.
Nay, man, my master, is my slave;
I give command to kill or save;
Can grant ten thousand pounds a year,
And make a beggar's brat a peer.
But, while I thus my life relate,
I only hasten on my fate.
My tongue is black, my mouth is furr'd, I hardly now can force a word.
I die unpitied and forgot,
And on some dunghill left to rot.
ALL-RULING tyrant of the Earth,
To vilest slaves I owe my birth.
How is the greatest monarch blest,
When in my gaudy livery drest!
No haughty nymph has power to run
From me, or my embraces shun.
Stabb'd to the heart, condemn'd to flame,
My constancy is still the same.
The favourite messenger of Jove,
And Lemnian god, consulting strove
To make me glorious to the sight
Of mortals, and the gods' delight.
Soon would their altars' flame expire,
If I refus'd to lend them fire.
I sometimes give advice in writing,
But never of my own inditing.
I am a courtier in my way;
For those who rais'd me, I betray;
And some give out, that I entice
To lust, and luxury, and dice;
Who punishments on me inflict,
Because they find their pockets pickt,
By riding post, I lose my health;
And only to get others wealth.
IV. ON THE POSTERIORS.
BECAUSE I am by nature blind,
I wisely chuse to walk behind;
However, to avoid disgrace,
I let no creature see my face.
My words are few, but spoke with sense;
And yet my speaking gives offence:
Or, if to whisper I presume,
The company will fly the room.
By all the world I am opprest;
And my oppression gives them rest.
Through me, though sore against my will, Instructors every art instil.
By thousands I am sold and bought,
Who neither get nor lose a groat;
For none, alas! by me can gain,
But those who give me greatest pain.
Shall man presume to be my master,
Who's but my caterer and taster?
Yet, though I always have my will,
I'm but a mere depender still;
An humble hanger on at best,
Of whom all people make a jest.
In me detractors seek to find
Two vices of a different kind:
I'm too profuse, some censurers cry;
And all I get, I let it fly:
While others give me many a curse,
Because too close I hold my purse.
But this I know, in either case
They dare not charge me to my face.
'Tis true indeed, sometimes I save,
Sometimes run out of all I have;
But, when the year is at an end,
Computing what I get and spend,
My goings-out, and comings-in,
I cannot find I lose or win;
And therefore all that know me say,
I justly keep the middle way.
I'm always by my betters led;
I last get up, and first a-bed;
Though, if I rise before my time,
The learn'd in sciences sublime
Consult the stars, and thence foretel
Good luck to those with whom I dwell.
By fate exalted high in place,
Lo, here I stand with double face;
Superior none on Earth I find;
But see below me all mankind.
Yet, as it oft attends the great,
I almost sink with my own weight.
At every motion undertook,
The vulgar all consult my look.
THE joy of man, the pride of brutes,
Domestic subject for disputes,
Of plenty thou the emblem fair,
Adorn'd by nymphs with all their care &
I saw thee rais'd to high renown,
Supporting half the British crown;
And often have I seen thee grace
The chaste Diana's infant face;
And whensoe'er you please to shine,
Less useful is her light than thine:
Thy numerous fingers know their way,
And oft in Celia's tresses play.
To place thee in another view,
I'll show the world strange things and true;
What lords and dames of high degree
May justly claim their birth from thee.
The soul of man with spleen you vex;
Of spleen you cure the female sex.
Thee for a gift the courtier sends
With pleasure to his special friends:
He gives, and, with a generous pride,
Contrives all means the gift to hide:
Nor oft can the receiver know,
Whether he has the gift or no.
On airy wings you take your flight,
And fly unseen both day and night;
Conceal your form with various tricks;
And few know how or where you fix:
Yet some, who ne'er bestow'd thee, boast
That they to others give thee most.
Mean time, the wise a question start,
If thou a real being art;
Or but a creature of the brain,
That gives imaginary pain.
But the sly giver better knows thee,
Who feels true joys when he bestows thee.
VI. ON A CORKSCREW.
TROUGH I, alas! a prisoner be,
My trade is prisoners to set free.
No slave his lord's commands obeys
With such insinuating ways.
My genius piercing, sharp, and bright,
Wherein the men of wit delight.
The clergy keep me for their ease,
And turn and wind me as they please.
A new and wondrous art I show
Of raising spirits from below;
In scarlet some, and some in white';
They rise, walk round, yet never fright,
In at each mouth the spirits pass,
Distinctly seen as through a glass;
O'er head and body make a rout,
And drive at last all secrets out:
And still, the more I show my art,
The more they open every heart.
A greater chemist none than I,
Who from materials hard and dry
Have taught men to extract with skill
More precious juice than from a still.
Although I'm often out of case,
I'm not asham'd to show my face
Though at the tables of the great
I near the sideboard take my seat;
Yet the plain 'squire, when dinner 's done,
Is never pleas'd till I make one :
He kindly bids me near him stand,
And often takes me by the hand.
I twice a day a hunting go,
Nor ever fail to seize my foe;
And, when I have him by the pole,
I drag him upwards from his hole;
Though some are of so stubborn kind, I'm forc'd to leave a limb behind.
I hourly wait some fatal end; For I can break, but scorn to bend
THE GULPH OF ALL HUMAN POSSESSIONS,
COME hither, and behold the fruits,
Vain man! of all thy vain pursuits.
Take wise advice, and look behind,
Bring all past actions to thy mind.
Here you may see, as in a glass,
How soon all human pleasures pass.
How will it mortify thy pride,
To turn the true impartial side!
How will your eyes contain their tears,
When all the sad reverse appears!
This cave within its womb confines
The last result of all designs:
Here lie deposited the spoils
Of busy mortals' endless toils:
Here, with an easy search, we find
The foul corruptions of mankind.
The wretched purchase here behold
Of traitors who their country sold.
This gulph insatiable imbibes
The lawyer's fees, the statesman's bribes,
Here, in their proper shape and mien,
Fraud, perjury, and guilt, are seen.
Necessity, the tyrant's law,
All human race must hither draw;
All prompted by the same desire,
The vigorous youth, and aged sire.
Behold, the coward and the brave,
The haughty prince, the humble slave,
Physician, lawyer, and divine,
All make oblations at this shrine.
Some enter boldly, some by stealth,
And leave behind their fruitless wealth.
For while the bashful sylvan maid,
As half asham'd, and half afraid,
Approaching finds it hard to part
With that which dwelt so near her heart;
The courtly dame, unmov'd by fear,
Profusely pours her offerings here.
A treasure here of learning lurks,
Huge heaps of never-dying works;
Labours of many an ancient sage,
And millions of the present age.
In at this gulph all offerings pass,
And lie an undistinguish'd mass.
Deucalion, to restore mankind,
Was bid to throw the stones behind;
So those who here their gifts convey
Are forc'd to look another way;
For few, a chosen few, must know
The mysteries that lie below.
Sad charnel-house! a dismal dome,
For which all mortals leave their home!
The young, the beautiful, and bravé,
Here bury'd in one common grave!
Where each supply of dead renews
Unwholesome damps, offensive dews;
And lo! the writing on the walis
Points out where each new victim falls ;
The food of worms and beasts obscene, Who round the vanlt luxuriant reign.
See where those mangled corpses lie, Condemn'd by female hands to die! A comely dame, once clad in white, Lies there consign'd to endless night; By cruel hands her blood was spilt. And yet her wealth was all her guilt. And here six virgins in a toinb, All-beauteous offspring of one womb, Oft in the train of Venus seen, As fair and lovely as their queen : In royal garments each was drest, Each with a go'd and purple vest: I saw them of their garments stript; Their throats were cut, their bellies ript; Twice were they bury'd, twice were born, Twice from their sepulchres were torn ; But now dismember'd here are cast, And find a resting-place at last.
Here oft the curious traveller finds The combat of opposing winds; And seeks to learn the secret cause, Which alien seems from nature's laws, Why at this cave's tremendous mouth He feels at once both north and south; Whether the winds, in caverns pent, Through clefts oppugnant force a vent; Or whether, opening all his stores, Fierce Eolus in tempest roars.
Yet, from this mingled mass of things, In time a new creation springs. These crude materials once shall rise To fill the earth, and air and skies; In various forms appear again, Of vegetables, brutes, and men. So Jove pronounc'd among the gods, Olympus trembling as he nods.
LOUISA TO STREPHON.
AH! Strephon, how can you despise
Her who without thy pity dies?
To Strephon I have still been true,
And of as noble blood as you;
Fair issue of the genial bed,
A virgin in thy bosom bred;
Embrac'd thee closer than a wife;
When thee I leave, I leave my life.
Why should my shepherd take amiss,
That oft I wake thee with a kiss?
Yet you of every kiss complain;
Ah! is not love a pleasing pain?"
A pain which every happy night
You cure with ease and with delight;
With pleasure, as the poet sings,
Too great for mortals less than kings.
Chloe, when on thy breast I lie,
Observes me with revengeful eye:
If Chloe o'er thy heart prevails,
She'll tear me with her desperate nails,
And with relentless hands destroy
The tender pledges of our joy.
Nor have I bred a spurious race;
They all were born from thy embrace.
This riddle is solved by an anagram.
Consider, Strephon, what you do;
For, should I die for love of you,
I'll haunt thy dreams, a bloodless ghost;
And all my kin (a numerous host,
Who down direct our lineage bring
From victors o'er the Memphian king;
Renown'd in sieges and campaigns,
Who never fled the bloody plains,
Who in tempestuous seas can sport,
And scorn the pleasures of a court,
From whom great Sylla found his doom,
Who scourg'd to death that scourge of Rome)
Shall on thee take a vengeance dire;
Thou, like Alcides, shalt expire,
When his envenom'd shirt he wore,
And skin and flesh in pieces tore.
Nor less that shirt, my rival's gift,
Cut from the piece that made her shift,
Shall in thy dearest blood be dy'd,
And make thee tear thy tainted hide.
DEPRIV'D of root, and branch, and rind,
Yet flowers I bear of every kind;
And such is my prolific power,
They bloom in less than half an hour;
Yet standers-by may plainly see
They get no nourishment from me.
My head with giddiness goes round,
And yet I firmly stand my ground:
All over naked I am seen,
And painted like an Indian queen.
No couple-beggar in the land
E'er join'd such numbers hand in hand;
I join them fairly with a ring;
Nor can our parson blame the thing:
And, though no marriage words are spoke,
They part not till the ring is broke;
Yet hypocrite fanatics cry,
I'm but an idol rais'd on high:
And once a weaver in our town,
A damn d Cromwellian, knock'd me down.
I lay a prisoner twenty years,
And then the jovial cavaliers
To their old post restor'd all three,
I mean the church, the king, and me.
X. ON THE MOON.
I WITH borrow'd silver shine,
What you see is none of mine.
First I show you but a quarter,
Like the bow that guards the Tartar;
Then the half, and then the whole,
Ever dancing round the pole.
And what will raise your admiration,
I am not one of God's creation,
But sprung (and I this truth maintain) Like Pallas from my father's brain. And, after all, I chiefly owe
My beauty to the shades below.
Most wondrous forms you see me wear,
A man, a woman, lion, bear,
A fish, a fowl, a cloud, a field,
All figures Heaven or Earth can yield;
Like Daphne sometimes in a tree! Yet am not one of all you see.
I'm up and down, and round about,
Yet all the world can't had me out ;
Though hundreds have employ'd their leisure,
They never yet could find my measure.
I'm found almost in every garden,
Nay in the compass of a farthing.
There's neither chariot, coach, nor mill,
Can move an inch, except I will.
One of us alone can sleep, Yet no watch the rest will keep, But the moment that he closes, Every brother else reposes.
If wine 's bought, or victuals drest, One enjoys them for the rest.
Pierce us all with wounding steel, One for all of us will feel.
Though ten thousand cannons roar, Add to them ten thousand more, Yet but one of us is found Who regards the dreadful sound. Do what is not fit to tell, There's but one of us can smell.
I AM jet black, as you may see,
The son of pitch, and gloomy night: Yet all that know me will agree,
I'm dead except I live in light. Sometimes in panegyric high,
Like lofty Pindar, I can soar; And raise a virgin to the sky,
Or sink her to a pocky whore.
My blood this day is very sweet,
To morrow of a bitter juice;
Like milk, 'tis cry'd about the street,
And so apply'd to different use.
Most wondrous is my magic power:
For with one colour I can paint;
I'll make the devil a saint this hour,
Next make a devil of a saint.
Through distant regions I can fly,
Provide me but with paper wings; And fairly show a reason, why
There should be quarrels among kings. And, after all, you 'll think it odd,
When learned doctors will dispute, That I should point the word of God,
And show where they can best confute. Let lawyers bawl and strain their throats: Tis I that must the lands convey, And strip the clients to their coats, Nay, give their very souls away.
XIII. ON THE FIVE SENSES.
ALL of us in one you'll find,
Brethren of a wondrous kind;
Yet among us all no brother
Knows one tittle of the other.
We in frequent councils are,
And our marks of things declare,
Where, to us unknown, a clerk
Sits, and takes them in the dark.
He's the register of all
In our ken, both great and small,
By us forms his laws and rules:
He's our master, we his tools;
Yet we can with greatest ease
Turn and wind him where we please.
XIV. FONTINELLA TO FLORINDA. WHEN on my bosom thy bright eyes, Florinda, dart their heavenly beams,
I feel not the least love-surprise,
Yet endless tears flow down in streams;
There's nought so beautiful in thee
But you may find the same in me.
The lilies of thy skin compare;
In me you see them full as white.
The roses of your cheeks, I dare
Affirm, can't glow to more delight,
Then, since I show as fine a face,
Can you refuse a soft embrace?
Ah! lovely nymph, thou 'rt in thy prime !
And so am I whilst thou art here;
But soon will come the fatal time,
When all we see shall disappear.
'Tis mine to make a just reflection,
And yours to follow my direction.
Then catch admirers while you may;
Treat not your lovers with disdain;
For time with beauty flies away,
And there is no return again.
To you the sad account I bring,
Life's autumn has no second spring.
XV. ON AN ECHO.
NEVER sleeping, still awake,
Pleasing most when most I speak;
The delight of old and young,
Though I speak without a tongue.
Nought but one thing can confound me,
Many voices joining round me;
Then I fret, and rave, and gabble,
Like the labourers of Babel.
Now I am a dog, or cow;
I can bark, or I can low;
I can bleat, or I can sing
Like the warblers of the spring.
Let the love-sick bard complain,
And I mourn the cruel pain;
Let the happy swain rejoice,
And I join my helping voice;
Both are welcome, grief or joy,
I with either sport and toy.
Though a lady, I am stout,
Drums and trumpets bring me out:
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