Drive Thraldom with malignant hand,
To curse some other destined land,
By folly led astray:
Iërne bear on azure wing;
Energic let her soar, and sing
Thy universal sway.
So when Amphion bade the lyre
To more majestic sound aspire,
Behold the madding throng,
In wonder and oblivion drown'd,
To sculpture turn'd by magic sound
And petrifying song.
FOR THE STAY OF THE DEAN IN ENGLAND.
Written on the same plan with the preceding, in order to ridicule the commonplaces of poetry.
BLOW, ye zephyrs, gentle gales;
Gently fill the swelling sails.
Neptune, with thy trident long,
Trident three-fork'd, trident strong;
And ye Nereids fair and gay,
Fairer than the rose in May,
Nereids living in deep caves,
Gently wash'd with gentle waves;
Nereids, Neptune lull asleep
Ruffling storms, and ruffled deep;
All around, in pompous state
On this richer Argo wait:
Argo, bring my golden fleece,
Argo, bring him to his Greece.
Will Cadenus longer stay?
Come, Cadenus, come away:
Come with all the haste of love,
Come unto thy turtle-dove.
The ripen'd cherry on the tree
Hangs, and only hangs for thee,
Luscious peaches, mellow pears,
Ceres, with her yellow ears,
And the grape, both red and white,
Grape inspiring just delight;
All are ripe, and courting sue
To be pluck'd and press'd by you.
Pinks have lost their blooming red,
Mourning hang their drooping head,
Every flower languid seems,
Wants the color of thy beams,
Beams of wondrous force and power,
"Praise is the strongest satire, and the most pleasing, but it requires great art and judgment to manage and conduct an irony. I once said, talking on this subject with dean Swift, that the Rhapsody was the best satire he had ever composed. He assured me that immediately after this poem was published, he received a message of thanks from the whole ***.-[Dr. King's cautious asterisks may be supplied with the words royal family!] This I can easily conceive, as irony is not a figure in the German rhetoric. If Mr. Pope, when he calls lord Cobham a coward, had complimented a German colonel with the same appellation, my little friend I fear would have fared very ill."-DR. KING'S Anecdotes.
ALL human race would fain be wits,
And millions miss for one that hits.
Young's universal passion, pride,
Was never known to spread so wide.
Say, Britain, could you ever boast
Three poets in an age at most?
Our chilling climate hardly bears
A sprig of bays in fifty years;
While every fool his claim alleges,
As if it grew in common hedges.
What reason can there be assign'd
For this perverseness in the mind?
Brutes find out where their talents lie:
A bear will not attempt to fly;
A founder'd horse will oft debate,
Before he tries a five-barr'd gate;
A dog by instinct turns aside,
Who sees the ditch too deep and wide.
But man we find the only creature
Who, led by Folly, combats Nature;
Who, when she loudly cries Forbear,
With obstinacy fixes there;
And, where his genius least inclines,
Absurdly bends his whole designs.
Not empire to the rising sun
And, having no sinister ends,
Is apt to disoblige his friends.
The nation's good, his master's glory,
Without regard to Whig or Tory,
Were all the schemes he had in view,
Yet he was seconded by few:
Though some had spread a thousand lies,
'Twas he defeated the excise.
'Twas known, though he had borne aspersion,
That standing troops were his aversion:
His practice was, in every station,
To serve the king and please the nation.
Though hard to find in every case
The fittest man to fill a place:
His promises he ne'er forgot,
But took memorials on the spot;
His enemies, for want of charity,
Said he affected popularity:
'Tis true the people understood
That all he did was for their good;
Their kind affections he has tried;
No love is lost on either side.
He came to court with fortune clear,
Which now he runs out every year;
Must, at the rate that he goes on,
Inevitably be undone:
O! if his majesty would please
To give him but a writ of ease,
Would grant him license to retire,
As it has long been his desire,
By fair accounts it would be found,
He's poorer by ten thousand pound.
He owns, and hopes it is no sin,
He ne'er was partial to his kin;
He thought it base for men in stations
To crowd the court with their relations:
His country was his dearest mother,
And every virtuous man his brother;
Through modesty or awkward shame
(For which he owns himself to blame),
He found the wisest man he could,
Without respect to friends or blood;
Nor ever acts on private views
When he has liberty to choose.
The Sharper swore he hated play,
Except to pass an hour away:
And well he might; for, to his cost,
By want of skill he always lost;
He heard there was a club of cheats,
Who had contrived a thousand feats;
Could change the stock, or cog a die,
Nor wonder how his fortune sunk.
His brothers fleece him when he's drunk.
I own the moral not exact,
Besides, the tale is false in fact;
And so absurd that could I raise up,
From fields Elysian, fabling Æsop,
I would accuse him to his face
For libelling the four-foot race.
Creatures of every kind but ours
Well comprehend their natural powers,
While we, whom reason ought to sway,
Mistake our talents every day.
The Ass was never known so stupid
To act the part of Tray or Cupid;
Nor leaps upon his master's lap
There to be stroked and fed with pap,
As Esop would the world persuade;
He better understands his trade:
Nor comes whene'er his lady whistles,
But carries loads, and feeds on thistles.
Our author's meaning, I presume, is
A creature bipes et implumis;
Wherein the moralist design'd
A compliment on humankind;
For here he owns that now and then
Beasts may degenerate into men.
THE PARSON'S CASE.
THAT you, friend Marcus, like a stoic,
Can wish to die in strains heroic,
No real fortitude implies:
Yet all must own thy wish is wise.
Thy curate's place, thy fruitful wife,
Thy busy, drudging scene of life,
The insolent illiterate vicar,
Thy want of all-consoling liquor,
Thy threadbare gown, thy cassock rent,
Thy credit sunk, thy money spent,
Thy week made up of fasting-days,
Thy grate unconscious of a blaze,
And to complete thy other curses,
The quarterly demands of nurses,
Are ills you wisely wish to leave,
And fly for refuge to the grave:
And, Ŏ, what virtue you express,
In wishing such afflictions less!
But now should Fortune shift the scene,
And make thy curateship a dean;
Or some rich benefice provide,
To pamper luxury and pride;
With labor small and income great,
With chariot less for use than state;
With swelling scarf, and glossy gown,
And license to reside in town;
To shine where all the gay resort,
At concerts, coffeehouse, or court;
And weekly persecute his grace
With visits, or to beg a place;
With underlings thy flock to teach,
With no desire to pray or preach;
With haughty spouse in vesture fine,
With plenteous meals and generous wine
Would'st thou not wish, in so much ease,
Thy years as numerous as thy days?
THE HARDSHIP UPON THE LADIES.
1733.
POOR ladies! though their business be to play,
'Tis hard they must be busy night and day:
Why should they want the privilege of men,
Nor take some small diversions now and then?
Had women been the makers of our laws,
(And why they were not I can see no cause,)
The men should slave at cards from morn to night;
And female pleasures be to read and write.
A LOVE-SONG
IN THE MODERN TASTE. 1733.
FLUTTERING spread thy purple pinions,
Gentle Cupid, o'er my heart;
I a slave in thy dominions;
Nature must give way to art.
Mild Arcadians, ever blooming,
Nightly nodding o'er your flocks,
See my weary days consuming
All beneath yon flowery rocks.
Thus the Cyprian goddess weeping,
Mourn'd Adonis, darling youth;
Him the boar, in silence creeping,
Gored with unrelenting tooth.
Cynthia, tune harmonious numbers;
Fair Discretion, string the lyre;
Soothe my ever-waking slumbers;
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