Or will you think, my friend, your business done,
When, of a hundred thorns, you pull out one?
Learn to live well, or fairly make your will;
You've play'd, and loved, and eat and drank your fill
Walk sober off, before a sprightlier age
Comes tittering on, and shoves you from the stage:
Leave such to trifle with more grace and ease,
Whom folly pleases, and whose follies please.
IMITATED IN THE MANNER OF DR. SWIFT.
"TIs true, my lord, I gave my word,
I would be with you June the third;
Changed it to August, and in short,
Have kept it-as you do at court.
You humour me when I am sick,
Why not when I am splenetic?
In town, what objects could I meet?
The shops shut up in every street,
And funerals blackening all the doors,
And yet more melancholy whores:
And what a dust in every place!
And a thin court that wants your face,
And fevers raging up and down,
And W* and H** both in town!
"The dog-days are no more the case."
'Tis true, but winter comes apace:
Then southward let your bard retire,
Hold out some months 'twixt sun and fire,
And you shall see, the first warm weather,
Me and the butterflies together.
My lord, your favours well I know;
"Tis with distinction you bestow;
And not to every one that comes,
Just as a Scotsman does his plums:
"Pray take them, sir-enough's a feast
Eat some, and pocket up the rest."-
What, rob your boys? those pretty rogues!
"No, sir, you'll leave them to the hogs."
Thus fools, with compliments besiege ye,
Contriving never to oblige ye.
Scatter your favours on a fop,
Ingratitude's the certain crop
And 'tis but just, I'll tell ye wherefore,
You give the things you never care for.
A wise man always is, or should
Be mighty ready to do good:
But makes a difference in his thought
Betwixt a guinea and a groat.
Now this I'll say, you'll find in me
A safe companion, and a free;
But if you'd have me always near-
A word, pray, in your honour's ear.
I hope it is your resolution
To give me back my constitution!
The sprightly wit, the lively eye,
The engaging smile, the gaiety
That laugh'd down many a summer sun,
And kept you up so oft till one;
And all that voluntary vein,
As when Belinda raised my strain.
A weasel once made shift to slink
In at a corn-loft through a chink,
But having amply stuff'd his skin,
Could not get out as he got in;
Which one belonging to the house
('Twas not a man, it was a mouse)
Observing, cried, "You 'scape not so!
Lean as you came, sir, you must go."
Sir, you may spare your application! I'm no such beast, nor his relation; Nor one that temperance advance, Cramm'd to the throat with ortolans: Extremely ready to resign
All that may make me none of mine.
South-sea subscriptions take who please,
Leave me but liberty and ease.
'Twas what I said to Craggs and Child,
Who praised my modesty and smiled.
Give me, I cried, (enough for me)
My bread, and independency!
So bought an annual rent or two,
And lived—just as you see I do; ́ ̧
Near fifty, and without a wife,
I trust that sinking fund, my life.
Can I retrench? Yes, mighty well,
Shrink back to my paternal cell,
A little house, with trees a-row,
And, like its master, very low.
There died my father, no man's debtor,
And there I'll die, nor worse nor better.
To set this matter full before ye,
Our old friend Swift will tell his story.
"Harley, the nation's great support,"
But you may read it, I stop short.
THE FIRST PART IMITATED IN THE YEAR 1714, BY DR. SWIFT,
THE LATTER PART ADDED AFTERWARD
I'VE often wish'd that I had clear
For life, six hundred pounds a year,
A handsome house to lodge a friend,
A river at my garden's end,
A terrace-walk, and half a rood
Of land, set out to plant a wood.
Well, now I have all this and more,
I ask not to increase my store;
But here a grievance seems to lie,
All this is mine but till I die;
I can't but think 'twould sound more clever
To me and to my heirs for ever.
If I ne'er got or lost a groat,
By any trick, or any fault;
And if I pray by Reason's rules,
And not like forty other fools:
As thus, 'Vouchsafe, O gracious Maker!
To grant me this and t'other acre:
Or, if it be thy will and pleasure,
Direct my plough to find a treasurə
But only what my station fits,
And to be kept in my right wits,
Preserve, Almighty Providence!
Just what you gave me, competence:
And let me in these shades compose
Something in verse as true as prose,
Removed from all the ambitious scene.
Nor puff'd by pride, nor sunk by spleen.'
In short, I'm perfectly content,
Let me but live on this side Trent;
Nor cross the channel twice a year,
To spend six months with statesmen here.
I must, by all means, come to town,
"Tis for the service of the crown.
"Lewis, the Dean will be of use,
Send for him up, take no excuse."
The toil, the danger of the seas,
Great ministers ne'er think of these;
Or let it cost five hundred pound,
No matter where the money's found.
It is but so much more in debt,
And that they ne'er consider'd yet.
"Good Mr. Dean, go change your gown,
Let my lord know you're come to town."
I hurry me in haste away,
Not thinking it is levee-day;
And find his honour in a pound,
Hemm'd by a triple circle round,
Chequer'd with ribbons blue and green:
How should I thrust myself between:
Some wag observes me thus perplex'd
And smiling, whispers to the next,
"I thought the Dean had been too proud,
To justle here among a crowd."
Another, in a surly fit,
Tells me I have more zeal than wit:
"So eager to express your love,
You ne'er consider whom you shove,
But rudely press before a duke."
I own, I'm pleased with this rebuke,
And take it kindly meant to show
What I desire the world should know.
I get a whisper, and withdraw:
When twenty fools I never saw
Come with petitions fairly penn'd,
Desiring I would stand their frienì.
This humbly offers me his case-
That, begs my interest for a place-
A. hundred other men's affairs,
Like bees, are humming in my ears.
"To-morrow my appeal comes on,
Without your help the cause is gone"-
The duke expects my lord and you,
About some great affair, at two-
"Put my Lord Bolingbroke in mind,
To get my warrant quickly sign'd:
Consider 'tis my first request.'
Be satisfied, I'll do my best:-
Then presently he falls to tease,
"You may for certain if you please;
I doubt not, if his lordship knew—
And Mr. Dean, one word from you"-
"Tis (let me see) three years and more,
(October next it will be four)
Since HARLEY bid me first attend,
And chose me for an humble friend;
Would take me in his coach to chat,
And question me of this and that;
As, "What's-o-clock ?" And, "How's the wind?" "Whose chariot's that we left behind ?"
Or gravely try to read the lines
Writ underneath the country signs;
Or, "Have you nothing new to-day
From Pope, from Parnell, or from Gay?"
Such tattle often entertains
My lord and me as far as Staines,
As once a week we travel down
To Windsor, and again to town;
Where all that passes, inter nos,
Might be proclaim'd at Charing-cross.
Yet some, I know, with envy swell,
Because they see me used so well:
"How think you of our friend the Dean?
I wonder what some people mean;
My lord and he are grown so great,
Always together, tête-à-tête.
What, they admire him for his jokes-
See but the fortune of some folks!"
There flies about a strange report
Of some express arrived at court;
I'm stopp'd by all the fools I meet,
And catechised in every street.
|