The caitiff eyes your steps aloof, and oft
Lies perdu in a nook or gloomy cave,
Prompt to enchant some inadvertent wretch
With his unhallowed touch. So (poets sing)
Grimalkin, to domestic vermin sworn
An everlasting foe, with watchful eye
Lies nightly brooding o'er a chinky gap,
Protending her fell claws, to thoughtless mice
Sure ruin. So her disembowelled web
Arachne, in a hall or kitchen, spreads
Obvious to vagrant flies. She secret stands
Within her woven cell; the humming prey,
Regardless of their fate, rush on the toils
Inextricable, nor will aught avail
Their arts, or arms, or shapes of lovely hue.
The wasp insidious, and the buzzing drone,
And butterfly, proud of expanded wings
Distinct with gold, entangled in her snares,
Useless resistance make. With eager strides,
She towering flies to her expected spoils;
Then, with envenomed jaws, the vital blood
Drinks of reluctant foes, and to her cave
Their bulky carcasses triumphant drags.
So pass my days. But, when nocturnal shades This world envelop, and the inclement air Persuades men to repel benumbing frosts
With pleasant wines, and crackling blaze of wood;
Me, lonely sitting, nor the glimmering light
Of make-weight candle, nor the joyous talk
Of loving friend, delights. Distressed, forlorn,
Amidst the horrors of the tedious night,
Darkling I sigh, and feed with dismal thoughts
My anxious mind; or sometimes mournful verse
Indite, and sing of groves and myrtle shades,
Or desperate lady near a purling stream,
Or lover pendent on a willow-tree.
Meanwhile I labour with eternal drought,
And restless wish and rave; my parched throat
Finds no relief, nor heavy eyes repose.
But, if a slumber haply does invade
My weary limbs, my fancy's still awake,
Thoughtful of drink, and, eager, in a dream,
Tipples imaginary pots of ale,-
In vain; awake I find the settled thirst
Still gnawing, and the pleasant phantom curse.
Thus do I live, from pleasure quite debarred,
Nor taste the fruits that the sun's genial rays
Mature; john-apple, nor the downy peach,
Nor walnut in rough-furrowed coat secure,
Nor medlar, fruit delicious in decay.
Afflictions great! yet greater still remain.
My galligaskins, that have long withstood
The winter's fury, and encroaching frosts,
By time subdued (what will not time subdue?)
An horrid chasm disclosed with orifice
Wide, discontinuous; at which the winds
Eurus and Auster, and the dreadful force
Of Boreas that congeals the Cronian waves,
Tumultuous enter with dire chilling blasts,
Portending agues. Thus a well-fraught ship
Long sailed secure, or through the Ægean deep,
Or the Ionian; till, cruising near
The Lilybean shore, with hideous crash
On Scylla or Charybdis (dangerous rocks!)
She strikes rebounding.
Whence the shattered oak,
So fierce a shock unable to withstand,
Admits the sea. In at the gaping side
The crowding waves gush with impetuous rage,
Resistless, overwhelming; horrors seize
The mariners; Death in their eyes appears;
They stare, they lave, they pump, they swear, they pray.
Vain efforts! Still the battering waves rush in,
Implacable, till, deluged by the foam,
The ship sinks foundering in the vast abyss.
[Born in 1678, died in 1755. Wrote some dramatic pieces, and translated Vida's poem on Chess. Two of his Tragedies, Edwin and Merope, were brought on the stage].
A RIDDLE OF DEAN SWIFT'S, VERSIFIED.
You ask a story, not more strange than true;
Nor must I hide it from a friend like you.
Without disguise my wretched lot behold,
In all its train of circumstances told.
And, though perhaps what I shall first advance
May make the whole resemble a romance,
A solemn truth it is-no whim, nor jest ;
Which, if you please, the Parson shall attest.
Know then, dear Sir, my present situation
Is in a small and sorry habitation,
Ill fitted-up and fenced; upon the waste,
Like other clay-built cottages, 'tis placed.
In this poor hut I breathe with care and pain;
And, what is harder, if I durst complain,
One minute's warning turns me out again.
Held by a sort of copy, it appears
An easy bargain for the first seven years:
For, free from rent, only then resort,
As bound in duty, to the Manor-court;
There once a week, or more, to custom true,
My landlord claims the suit and service due.
The twenty following years require a rose
In annual payment to my worst of foes.
My next acknowledgment is stranger still;
For, soon or later, at my landlord's will,
Each third or second year, or oftener yet,
A tooth discharges my unwelcome debt;
And, when to answer more demands I fail,
A meagre catchpole hurries me to jail.
No miscreant so remorseless ever tore
Thy journals, Fog, or knocked at Franklin's door.
In days of old, on better terms than these
I might have occupied the premises,
Ere a false step my fond great-grandsire made,
Warped by a wheedling wife, their race betrayed.
An orchard to the Manor-house adjoined,
Rich in delicious fruits of every kind :
In robbing it the graceless pair were caught
By a bad neighbour, to their ruin taught:
For by that slip, without retrieve, was lost
A certain privilege they once could boast;
And, from the hour when they were turned adrift,
Their hapless line have made this woful shift.
However, rubbing onward as I may,
I spare no pains to patch my house of clay;
And keep it in a tenantable way.
A little kitchen serves to dress my fare,
Shaped like an oven, rather round than square:
My garrets, poorly furnished, I may load,
Perhaps too much, with lumber à-la-mode.
To this low state uncomfortably tied,
Well as I can for rent-day I provide;
That, when my term (as soon it must) shall cease, My gracious Lord may sign a full release.
When I am ousted, a mean creeping race,
Doomed to succeed me, have secured the place; Where they are sure to multiply amain, Triumphant o'er their foe in Abchurch Lane.
Meanwhile this lodge, or call it what you please,
Has one snug hole, contrived for warmth and ease.
On the left side of my abode it lies,
And for my friends a resting-place supplies :
This to your use with pleasure I resign;
Yours is the lodging, while the house is mine.
[Dr. Sheridan, translator of Persius, and grandfather of Richard Brinsley Sheridan, was born in 1684, and died in 1738. He was a clergyman, and a friend of Swift. His heart was as light as his purse; and he was perpetually punning, fiddling, or throwing off some jocular effusion. On the anniversary of the accession of the reigning King, George I., Sheridan, being then one of the chaplains to the Lord Lieutenant, preached from the text "sufficient for the day is the evil thereof." This cost him his chaplaincy].
DR. DELANY'S VILLA.
WOULD you that Delville I describe?
Believe me, sir, I will not gibe :
For who could be satirical
Upon a thing so very small?
You scarce upon the borders enter,
Before you're at the very centre :
A single crow can make it night
When o'er your farm she takes her flight.
Yet, in this narrow compass, we
Observe a vast variety;
Both walks, walls, meadows, and parterres,
Windows and doors, and rooms and stairs,
And hills and dales, and woods and fields,
And hay and grass and corn it yields;
All to your haggard brought so cheap in,
Without the mowing or the reaping:
A razor, though to say't I'm loth,
Would shave you and your meadows both.
Though small's the farm, yet here's a house
Full large to entertain a mouse,
But where a rat is dreaded more
Than savage Calydonian boar;
For, if it's entered by a rat,
There is no room to bring a cat.
A little rivulet seems to steal
Down through a thing you call a vale,
Like tears adown a wrinkled cheek,
Like rain along a blade of leek:
And this you call your sweet Meander,
Which might be sucked up by a gander,
Could he but force his nether bill.
To scoop the channel of the rill.
For sure you'd make a mighty clutter,
Were it as big as city gutter.
Next come I to your kitchen garden,
Where one poor mouse would fare but hard in ;
And round this garden is a walk,
No longer than a tailor's chalk;
Thus I compare what space is in it,—
A snail creeps round it in a minute.
One lettuce makes a shift to squeeze
Up through a tuft you call your trees :
And, once a year, a single rose
Peeps from the bud, but never blows.
In vain then you expect its bloom;
It cannot blow for want of room.
In short, in all your boasted seat,
There's nothing but yourself that's Great.
[Born in Scotland towards 1684; died in 1738. He was called "Sir Robert Walpole's poet," being one of that minister's dependents. Two volumes of his poems appeared in 1729].
THE CHARMS OF INDOLENCE.
DEDICATED TO A CERTAIN LAZY FEER.
THY charms, O sacred Indolence, I sing;
Droop, yawning Muse, and moult thy sleepy wing.
Ye lolling powers (if any powers there be
Who loll supine), to you I bend my knee:
O'er my lean labour shed a vapoury breath,
And clog my numbers with a weight like death.
I feel the arrested wheels of meaning stand:
With poppy tinged, see! see! yon waving wand.
Morpheus, I own the influence of thy reign;
A drowsy sloth creeps cold through every vein.
Furred, like the Muses' magistrate, I sit,
And nod superior in a dream of wit.
Action expires, in honour of my lays,
And mankind snores encomiums to my praise.
Hail, holy state of unalarmed repose!
Dear source of honest and substantial prose!
Thou blest asylum of man's wearied race!
Nature's dumb picture, with her solemn face!
How shall my pen, untired, thy praise pursue?
Oh woe of living to have aught to do!
'Till the almighty fiat wakened life,
And wandering chaos rose in untried strife,
Till atoms jostled atoms in the deep,
Nature lay careless, in eternal sleep.
No whispering hope, no murmuring wish, possessed
A place in all the extended realms of rest.
The seeds of being undisturbed remained,
And indolence through space unbounded reigned.
Thence, lordly Sloth, thy high descent we trace;
The world's less ancient than thy reverend race.
Antiquity's whole boast is on thy side,
That great foundation of the modern pride.
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