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THE POEMS • I
Whatever was said,
They ne'er troubled their head,
But laugh'd at their own silly joking.
Should Solomon wise
In majesty rise,
And show them his wit and his learning;
They never would hear,
But turn the deaf ear,
As a matter they had no concern in.
You tell a good jest,
And please all the rest;
Comes Dingley, and asks you, what was it?
And, curious to know,
Away she will go
To seek an old rag in the closet.
TO STELLA
Tormented with incessant pains,
Can I devise poetic strains?
Time was, when I could yearly pay
My verse to Stella’s native day:
But now unable grown to write,
I grieve she ever saw the light.
Ungrateful! since to her I owe
That I these pains can undergo.
She tends me like an humble slave;
And, when indecently I rave,
When out my brutish passions break,
With gall in every word I speak,
She with soft speech my anguish cheers,
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JONATHAN SWIFT
Or melts my passions down with tears;
Although ‘tis easy to descry
She wants assistance more than I;
Yet seems to feel my pains alone,
And is a stoic in her own.
When, among scholars, can we fi nd
So soft and yet so fi rm a mind?
All accidents of life conspire
To raise up Stella’s virtue higher;
Or else to introduce the rest
Which had been latent in her breast.
Her fi rmness who could e’er have known,
Had she not evils of her own?
Her kindness who could ever guess,
Had not her friends been in distress?
Whatever base returns you fi nd
From me, dear Stella, still be kind.
In your own heart you’ll reap the fruit,
Though I continue still a brute.
But, when I once am out of pain,
I promise to be good again;
Meantime, your other juster friends
Shall for my follies make amends;
So may we long continue thus,
Admiring you, you pitying us.
VERSES BY STELLA
If it be true, celestial powers,
That you have form’d me fair,
And yet, in all my vainest hours,
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THE POEMS • I
My mind has been my care:
Then, in return, I beg this grace,
As you were ever kind,
What envious Time takes from my face
Bestow upon my mind!
A RECEIPT TO RESTORE STELLA’S YOUTH
The Scottish hinds, too poor to house
In frosty nights their starving cows,
While not a blade of grass or hay
Appears from Michaelmas to May,
Must let their cattle range in vain
For food along the barren plain:
Meagre and lank with fasting grown,
And nothing left but skin and bone;
Exposed to want, and wind, and weather,
They just keep life and soul together,
Till summer showers and evening’s dew
Again the verdant glebe renew;
And, as the vegetables rise,
The famish’d cow her want supplies;
Without an ounce of last year’s fl esh;
Whate’er she gains is young and fresh;
Grows plump and round, and full of mettle,
As rising from Medea’s kettle.
With youth and beauty to enchant
Europa’s counterfeit gallant.
Why, Stella, should you knit your brow,
If I compare you to a cow?
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JONATHAN SWIFT
‘Tis just the case; for you have fasted
So long, till all your fl esh is wasted;
And must against the warmer days
Be sent to Quilca down to graze;
Where mirth, and exercise, and air,
Will soon your appetite repair:
The nutriment will from within,
Round all your body, plump your skin;
Will agitate the lazy fl ood,
And fi ll your veins with sprightly blood.
Nor fl esh nor blood will be the same
Nor aught of Stella but the name:
For what was ever understood,
By human kind, but fl esh and blood?
And if your fl esh and blood be new,
You’ll be no more the former you;
But for a blooming nymph will pass,
Just fi fteen, coming summer’s grass,
Your jetty locks with garlands crown’d:
While all the squires for nine miles round,
Attended by a brace of curs,
With jockey boots and silver spurs,
No less than justices o’ quorum,
Their cow-boys bearing cloaks before ‘em,
Shall leave deciding broken pates,
To kiss your steps at Quilca gates.
But, lest you should my skill disgrace,
Come back before you’re out of case;
For if to Michaelmas you stay,
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THE POEMS • I
The new-born fl esh will melt away;
The ‘squires in scorn will fl y the house
For better game, and look for grouse;
But here, before the frost can mar it,
We’ll make it fi rm with beef and claret.
STELLA’S BIRTH-DAY
1724-5
As when a beauteous nymph decays,
We say she’s past her dancing days;
So poets lose their feet by time,
And can no longer dance in rhyme.
Your annual bard had rather chose
To celebrate your birth in prose:
Yet merry folks, who want by chance
A pair to make a country dance,
Call the old housekeeper, and get her
To fi ll a place for want of better:
While Sheridan is off the hooks,
And friend Delany at his books,
That Stella may avoid disgrace,
Once more the Dean supplies their place.
Beauty and wit, too sad a truth!
Have always been confi ned to youth;
The god of wit and beauty’s queen,
He twenty-one and she fi fteen,
No poet ever sweetly sung,
Unless he were, like Phoebus, young;
Nor ever nymph inspired to rhyme,
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JONATHAN SWIFT
Unless, like Venus, in her prime.
At fi fty-six, if this be true,
Am I a poet fi t for you?
Or, at the age of forty-three,
Are you a subject fi t for me?
Adieu! bright wit, and radiant eyes!
You must be grave and I be wise.
Our fate in vain we would oppose:
But I’ll be still your friend in prose:
Esteem and friendship to express,
Will not require poetic dress;
And if the Muse deny her aid
To have them sung, they may be said.
But, Stella, say, what evil tongue
Reports you are no longer young;
That Time sits with his scythe to mow
Where erst sat Cupid with his bow;
That half your locks are turn’d to gray?
I’ll ne’er believe a word they say.
‘Tis true, but let it not be known,
My eyes are somewhat dimmish grown;
For nature, always in the right,
To your decays adapts my sight;
And wrinkles undistinguished pass,
For I’m ashamed to use a glass:
And till I see them with these eyes,
Whoever says you have them, lies.
No length of time can make you quit
Honour and virtue, sense and wit;
Thus you may still be young to me,
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While I can better hear than see.
O ne’er may Fortune show her spite,
To make me deaf, and mend my sight!
BEC’S1 BIRTH-DAY
NOV. 8, 1726
This day, dear Bec, is thy nativity;
Had Fate a luckier one, she’d give it ye.
She chose a thread of greatest length,
And doubly twisted it for strength:
Nor will be able with her shears
To cut it off these forty years.
Then who says care will kill a cat?
Rebecca shows they’re out in that.
For she, though overrun with care,
Continues healthy, fat, and fair.
As, if the gout should seize the head,
Doctors pronounce the patient dead;
But, if they can, by all their arts,
Eject it to the extremest parts,
They give the sick man joy, and praise
The gout that will prolong his days.
Rebecca thus I gladly greet,
Who drives her cares to hands and feet:
For, though philosophers maintain
The limbs are guided by the brain,
Quite contrary Rebecca’s led;
THE POEMS • I
1
Mrs. Rebecca Dingley.
67
JONATHAN SWIFT
Her hands and feet conduct her head;
By arbitrary power convey her,
She ne’er considers why or where:
Her hands may meddle, feet may wander,
Her head is but a mere by-stander:
And all her bustling but supplies
The part of wholesome exercise.
Thus nature has resolved to pay her
The cat’s nine lives, and eke the care.
Long may she live, and help her friends
Whene’er it suits her private ends;
Domestic business never mind
Till coffee has her stomach lined;
But, when her breakfast gives her courage,
Then think on Stella’s chicken porridge:
I mean when Tiger has been served,
Or else poor Stella may be starved.
May Bec have many an evening nap,
With Tiger slabbering in her lap;
But always take a special care
She does not overset the chair;
Still be she curious, never hearken
To any speech but Tiger’s barking!
And when she’s in another scene,
Stella long dead, but fi rst the Dean,
May fortune and her coffee get her
Companions that will please her better!
Whole afternoons will sit beside her,
Nor for neglects or blunders chide her.
A goodly set as can be found
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THE POEMS • I
Of hearty gossips prating round;
Fresh from a wedding or a christening,
To teach her ears the art of listening,
And please her more to hear them tattle,
Than the Dean storm, or Stella rattle.
Late be her death, one gentle nod,
When Hermes, waiting with his rod,
Shall to Elysian fi elds invite her,
Where there will be no cares to fright her!
ON THE COLLAR OF TIGER
MRS. DINGLEY’S LAP-DOG
Pray steal me not; I’m Mrs. Dingley’s,
Whose heart in this four-footed thing lies.
STELLA’S BIRTH-DAY
MARCH 13, 1726-7
This day, whate’er the Fates decree,
Shall still be kept with joy by me:
This day then let us not be told,
That you are sick, and I grown old;
Nor think on our approaching ills,
And talk of spectacles and pills;
To-morrow will be time enough
To hear such mortifying stuff.
Yet, since from reason may be brought
A better and more pleasing thought,
69
JONATHAN SWIFT
Which can, in spite of all decays,
Support a few remaining days;
From not the gravest of divines
Accept for once some serious lines.
Although we now can form no more
Long schemes of life, as heretofore;
Yet you, while time is running fast,
Can look with joy on what is past.
Were future happiness and pain
A mere contrivance of the brain;
As atheists argue, to entice
And fi t their proselytes for vice;
(The only comfort they propose,
To have companions in their woes;)
Grant this the case; yet sure ‘tis hard
That virtue, styled its own reward,
And by all sages understood
To be the chief of human good,
Should acting die; nor leave behind
Some lasting pleasure in the mind,
Which, by remembrance, will assuage
Grief, sickness, poverty, and age;
And strongly shoot a radiant dart
To shine through life’s declining part.
Say, Stella, feel you no content,
Refl ecting on a life well spent?
Your skilful hand employ’d to save
Despairing wretches from the grave;
And then supporting with your store
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