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THE POEMS • II
TO LORD HARLEY, ON HIS MARRIAGE
Among the numbers who employ
Their tongues and pens to give you joy,
Dear Harley! generous youth, admit
What friendship dictates more than wit.
Forgive me, when I fondly thought
(By frequent observations taught)
A spirit so inform’d as yours
Could never prosper in amours.
The God of Wit, and Light, and Arts,
With all acquired and natural parts,
Whose harp could savage beasts enchant,
Was an unfortunate gallant.
Had Bacchus after Daphne reel’d,
The nymph had soon been brought to yield;
Or, had embroider’d Mars pursued,
The nymph would ne’er have been a prude.
Ten thousand footsteps, full in view,
Mark out the way where Daphne fl ew;
For such is all the sex’s fl ight,
They fl y from learning, wit, and light;
They fl y, and none can overtake
But some gay coxcomb, or a rake.
How then, dear Harley, could I guess
That you should meet, in love, success?
For, if those ancient tales be true,
Phoebus was beautiful as you;
Yet Daphne never slack’d her pace,
For wit and learning spoil’d his face.
111
JONATHAN SWIFT
And since the same resemblance held
In gifts wherein you both excell’d,
I fancied every nymph would run
From you, as from Latona’s son.
Then where, said I, shall Harley fi nd
A virgin of superior mind,
With wit and virtue to discover,
And pay the merit of her lover?
This character shall Ca’endish claim,
Born to retrieve her sex’s fame.
The chief among the glittering crowd,
Of titles, birth, and fortune proud,
(As fools are insolent and vain)
Madly aspired to wear her chain;
But Pallas, guardian of the maid,
Descending to her charge’s aid,
Held out Medusa’s snaky locks,
Which stupifi ed them all to stocks.
The nymph with indignation view’d
The dull, the noisy, and the lewd;
For Pallas, with celestial light,
Had purifi ed her mortal sight;
Show’d her the virtues all combined,
Fresh blooming, in young Harley’s mind.
Terrestrial nymphs, by formal arts,
Display their various nets for hearts:
Their looks are all by method set,
When to be prude, and when coquette;
Yet, wanting skill and power to chuse,
Their only pride is to refuse.
112
But, when a goddess would bestow
Her love on some bright youth below,
Round all the earth she casts her eyes;
And then, descending from the skies,
Makes choice of him she fancies best,
And bids the ravish’d youth be bless’d.
Thus the bright empress of the morn
Chose for her spouse a mortal born:
The goddess made advances fi rst;
Else what aspiring hero durst?
Though, like a virgin of fi fteen,
She blushes when by mortals seen;
Still blushes, and with speed retires,
When Sol pursues her with his fi res.
Diana thus, Heaven’s chastest queen
Struck with Endymion’s graceful mien
Down from her silver chariot came,
And to the shepherd own’d her fl ame.
Thus Ca’endish, as Aurora bright,
And chaster than the Queen of Night
Descended from her sphere to fi nd
A mortal of superior kind.
THE POEMS • II
PHYLLIS; OR, THE PROGRESS OF LOVE
Desponding Phyllis was endu’d
With ev’ry talent of a prude:
She trembled when a man drew near;
Salute her, and she turn’d her ear:
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JONATHAN SWIFT
If o’er against her you were placed,
She durst not look above your waist:
She’d rather take you to her bed,
Than let you see her dress her head;
In church you hear her, thro’ the crowd,
Repeat the absolution loud:
In church, secure behind her fan,
She durst behold that monster man:
There practis’d how to place her head,
And bite her lips to make them red;
Or, on the mat devoutly kneeling,
Would lift her eyes up to the ceiling.
And heave her bosom unaware,
For neighb’ring beaux to see it bare.
At length a lucky lover came,
And found admittance to the dame,
Suppose all parties now agreed,
The writings drawn, the lawyer feed,
The vicar and the ring bespoke:
Guess, how could such a match be broke?
See then what mortals place their bliss in!
Next morn betimes the bride was missing:
The mother scream’d, the father chid;
Where can this idle wench be hid?
No news of Phyl! the bridegroom came,
And thought his bride had skulk’d for shame;
Because her father used to say,
The girl had such a bashful way!
Now John the butler must be sent
To learn the road that Phyllis went:
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THE POEMS • II
The groom was wish’d to saddle Crop;
For John must neither light nor stop,
But fi nd her, wheresoe’er she fl ed,
And bring her back alive or dead.
See here again the devil to do!
For truly John was missing too:
The horse and pillion both were gone!
Phyllis, it seems, was fl ed with John.
Old Madam, who went up to fi nd
What papers Phyl had left behind,
A letter on the toilet sees,
“To my much honour’d father – these – “
(‘Tis always done, romances tell us,
When daughters run away with fellows,)
Fill’d with the choicest common-places,
By others used in the like cases.
“That long ago a fortune-teller
Exactly said what now befell her;
And in a glass had made her see
A serving-man of low degree.
It was her fate, must be forgiven;
For marriages were made in Heaven:
His pardon begg’d: but, to be plain,
She’d do’t if ‘twere to do again:
Thank’d God, ‘twas neither shame nor sin;
For John was come of honest kin.
Love never thinks of rich and poor;
She’d beg with John from door to door.
Forgive her, if it be a crime;
She’ll never do’t another time.
115
JONATHAN SWIFT
She ne’er before in all her life
Once disobey’d him, maid nor wife.”
One argument she summ’d up all in,
“The thing was done and past recalling;
And therefore hoped she should recover
His favour when his passion’s over.
She valued not what others thought her,
And was – his most obedient daughter.”
Fair maidens all, attend the Muse,
Who now the wand’ring pair pursues:
Away they rode in homely sort,
Their journey long, their money short;
The loving couple well bemir’d;
The horse and both the riders tir’d:
Their victuals bad, their lodgings worse;
Phyl cried! and John began to curse:
Phyl wish’d that she had strain’d a limb,
When fi rst she ventured out with him;
John wish’d that he had broke a leg,
When fi rst for her he quitted Peg.
But what adventures more befell ‘em,
The Muse hath now no time to tell ‘em;
How Johnny wheedled, threaten’d, fawn’d,
Till Phyllis all her trinkets pawn’d:
How oft she broke her marriage vows,
In kindness to maintain her spouse,
Till swains unwholesome spoil’d the trade;
For now the surgeon must be paid,
To whom those perquisites are gone,
In Christian justice due to John.
116
THE POEMS • II
When food and raiment now grew scarce,
Fate put a period to the farce,
And with exact poetic justice;
For John was landlord, Phyllis hostess;
They keep, at Stains, the Old Blue Boar,
Are cat and dog, and rogue and whore.
HORACE, BOOK IV, ODE IX ADDRESSED
TO ARCHBISHOP KING
Virtue conceal’d within our breast
Is inactivity at best:
But never shall the Muse endure
To let your virtues lie obscure;
Or suffer Envy to conceal
Your labours for the public weal.
Within your breast all wisdom lies,
Either to govern or advise;
Your steady soul preserves her frame,
In good and evil times, the same.
Pale Avarice and lurking Fraud,
Stand in your sacred presence awed;
Your hand alone from gold abstains,
Which drags the slavish world in chains.
Him for a happy man I own,
Whose fortune is not overgrown;
And happy he who wisely knows
To use the gifts that Heaven bestows;
Or, if it please the powers divine,
117
JONATHAN SWIFT
Can suffer want and not repine.
The man who infamy to shun
Into the arms of death would run;
That man is ready to defend,
With life, his country or his friend.
TO MR. DELANY
To you whose virtues, I must own
With shame, I have too lately known;
To you, by art and nature taught
To be the man I long have sought,
Had not ill Fate, perverse and blind,
Placed you in life too far behind:
Or, what I should repine at more,
Placed me in life too far before:
To you the Muse this verse bestows,
Which might as well have been in prose;
No thought, no fancy, no sublime,
But simple topics told in rhyme.
Three gifts for conversation fi t
Are humour, raillery, and wit:
The last, as boundless as the wind,
Is well conceived, though not defi ned;
For, sure by wit is only meant
Applying what we fi rst invent.
What humour is, not all the tribe
Of logic-mongers can describe;
Here only nature acts her part,
118
THE POEMS • II
Unhelp’d by practice, books, or art:
For wit and humour differ quite;
That gives surprise, and this delight,
Humour is odd, grotesque, and wild,
Only by affectation spoil’d;
‘Tis never by invention got,
Men have it when they know it not.
Our conversation to refi ne,
True humour must with wit combine:
From both we learn to rally well,
Wherein French writers most excel;
Voiture, in various lights, displays
That irony which turns to praise:
His genius fi rst found out the rule
For an obliging ridicule:
He fl atters with peculiar air
The brave, the witty, and the fair:
And fools would fancy he intends
A satire where he most commends.
But as a poor pretending beau,
Because he fain would make a show,
Nor can afford to buy gold lace,
Takes up with copper in the place:
So the pert dunces of mankind,
Whene’er they would be thought refi ned,
Because the diff’rence lies abstruse
‘Twixt raillery and gross abuse,
To show their parts will scold and rail,
Like porters o’er a pot of ale.
Such is that clan of boisterous bears,
119
JONATHAN SWIFT
Always together by the ears;
Shrewd fellows and arch wags, a tribe
That meet for nothing but to gibe;
Who fi rst run one another down,
And then fall foul on all the town;
Skill’d in the horse-laugh and dry rub,
And call’d by excellence The Club.
I mean your butler, Dawson, Car,
All special friends, and always jar.
The mettled and the vicious steed
Do not more differ in their breed,
Nay, Voiture is as like Tom Leigh,
As rudeness is to repartee.
If what you said I wish unspoke,
‘Twill not suffi ce it was a joke:
Reproach not, though in jest, a friend
For those defects he cannot mend;
His lineage, calling, shape, or sense,
If named with scorn, gives just offence.
What use in life to make men fret,
Part in worse humour than they met?
Thus all society is lost,
Men laugh at one another’s cost:
And half the company is teazed
That came together to be pleased:
For all buffoons have most in view
To please themselves by vexing you.
When jests are carried on too far,
And the loud laugh begins the war,
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