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Файл:The Poems II
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THE POEMS • II
That Flamsteed can, with all his skill,
See but her forehead and her chin.
Yet, as she wastes, she grows discreet,
Till midnight never shows her head;
So rotting Celia strolls the street,
When sober folks are all a-bed:
For sure, if this be Luna’s fate,
Poor Celia, but of mortal race,
In vain expects a longer date
To the materials of her face.
When Mercury her tresses mows,
To think of oil and soot is vain:
No painting can restore a nose,
Nor will her teeth return again.
Two balls of glass may serve for eyes,
White lead can plaister up a cleft;
But these, alas, are poor supplies
If neither cheeks nor lips be left.
Ye powers who over love preside!
Since mortal beauties drop so soon,
If ye would have us well supplied,
Send us new nymphs with each new moon!
THE PROGRESS OF MARRIAGE
AETATIS SUAE fi fty-two,
A reverend Dean began to woo
A handsome, young, imperious girl,
Nearly related to an earl.
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JONATHAN SWIFT
Her parents and her friends consent;
The couple to the temple went:
They fi rst invite the Cyprian queen;
‘Twas answer’d, “She would not be seen;”
But Cupid in disdain could scarce
Forbear to bid them kiss his —
The Graces next, and all the Muses,
Were bid in form, but sent excuses.
Juno attended at the porch,
With farthing candle for a torch;
While mistress Iris held her train,
The faded bow bedropt with rain.
Then Hebe came, and took her place,
But show’d no more than half her face.
Whate’er these dire forebodings meant,
In joy the marriage-day was spent;
The marriage-day, you take me right,
I promise nothing for the night.
The bridegroom, drest to make a fi gure,
Assumes an artifi cial vigour;
A fl ourish’d nightcap on, to grace
His ruddy, wrinkled, smirking face;
Like the faint red upon a pippin,
Half wither’d by a winter’s keeping.
And thus set out this happy pair,
The swain is rich, the nymph is fair;
But, what I gladly would forget,
The swain is old, the nymph coquette.
Both from the goal together start;
Scarce run a step before they part;
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THE POEMS • II
No common ligament that binds
The various textures of their minds;
Their thoughts and actions, hopes and fears,
Less corresponding than their years.
The Dean desires his coffee soon,
She rises to her tea at noon.
While the Dean goes out to cheapen books,
She at the glass consults her looks;
While Betty’s buzzing at her ear,
Lord, what a dress these parsons wear!
So odd a choice how could she make!
Wish’d him a colonel for her sake.
Then, on her fi nger ends she counts,
Exact, to what his age amounts.
The Dean, she heard her uncle say,
Is sixty, if he be a day;
His ruddy cheeks are no disguise;
You see the crow’s feet round his eyes.
At one she rambles to the shops,
To cheapen tea, and talk with fops;
Or calls a council of her maids,
And tradesmen, to compare brocades.
Her weighty morning business o’er,
Sits down to dinner just at four;
Minds nothing that is done or said,
Her evening work so fi lls her head.
The Dean, who used to dine at one,
Is mawkish, and his stomach’s gone;
In threadbare gown, would scarce a louse hold,
Looks like the chaplain of the household;
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JONATHAN SWIFT
Beholds her, from the chaplain’s place,
In French brocades, and Flanders lace;
He wonders what employs her brain,
But never asks, or asks in vain;
His mind is full of other cares,
And, in the sneaking parson’s airs,
Computes, that half a parish dues
Will hardly fi nd his wife in shoes.
Canst thou imagine, dull divine,
‘Twill gain her love, to make her fi ne?
Hath she no other wants beside?
You feed her lust as well as pride,
Enticing coxcombs to adore,
And teach her to despise thee more.
If in her coach she’ll condescend
To place him at the hinder end,
Her hoop is hoist above his nose,
His odious gown would soil her clothes.
She drops him at the church, to pray,
While she drives on to see the play.
He like an orderly divine,
Comes home a quarter after nine,
And meets her hasting to the ball:
Her chairmen push him from the wall.
The Dean gets in and walks up stairs,
And calls the family to prayers;
Then goes alone to take his rest
In bed, where he can spare her best.
At fi ve the footmen make a din,
Her ladyship is just come in;
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THE POEMS • II
The masquerade began at two,
She stole away with much ado;
And shall be chid this afternoon,
For leaving company so soon:
She’ll say, and she may truly say’t,
She can’t abide to stay out late.
But now, though scarce a twelvemonth married,
Poor Lady Jane has thrice miscarried:
The cause, alas! is quickly guest;
The town has whisper’d round the jest.
Think on some remedy in time,
The Dean you see, is past his prime,
Already dwindled to a lath:
No other way but try the Bath.
For Venus, rising from the ocean,
Infused a strong prolifi c potion,
That mix’d with Acheloüs spring,
The horned fl ood, as poets sing,
Who, with an English beauty smitten,
Ran under ground from Greece to Britain;
The genial virtue with him brought,
And gave the nymph a plenteous draught;
Then fl ed, and left his horn behind,
For husbands past their youth to fi nd;
The nymph, who still with passion burn’d,
Was to a boiling fountain turn’d,
Where childless wives crowd every morn,
To drink in Acheloüs horn;
Or bathe beneath the Cross their limbs
Where fruitful matter chiefl y swims.
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JONATHAN SWIFT
And here the father often gains
That title by another’s pains.
Hither, though much against his grain
The Dean has carried Lady Jane.
He, for a while, would not consent,
But vow’d his money all was spent:
Was ever such a clownish reason!
And must my lady slip her season?
The doctor, with a double fee,
Was bribed to make the Dean agree.
Here, all diversions of the place
Are proper in my lady’s case:
With which she patiently complies,
Merely because her friends advise;
His money and her time employs
In music, raffl ing-rooms, and toys;
Or in the Cross-bath seeks an heir,
Since others oft have found one there;
Where if the Dean by chance appears,
It shames his cassock and his years.
He keeps his distance in the gallery,
Till banish’d by some coxcomb’s raillery;
For ‘twould his character expose,
To bathe among the belles and beaux.
So have I seen, within a pen,
Young ducklings foster’d by a hen;
But, when let out, they run and muddle,
As instinct leads them, in a puddle;
The sober hen, not born to swim,
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THE POEMS • II
With mournful note clucks round the brim.
The Dean, with all his best endeavour,
Gets not an heir, but gets a fever.
A victim to the last essays
Of vigour in declining days,
He dies, and leaves his mourning mate
(What could he less?) his whole estate.
The widow goes through all her forms:
New lovers now will come in swarms.
O, may I see her soon dispensing
Her favours to some broken ensign!
Him let her marry for his face,
And only coat of tarnish’d lace;
To turn her naked out of doors,
And spend her jointure on his whores;
But, for a parting present, leave her
A rooted pox to last for ever!
THE PROGRESS OF POETRY
The farmer’s goose, who in the stubble
Has fed without restraint or trouble,
Grown fat with corn and sitting still,
Can scarce get o’er the barn-door sill;
And hardly waddles forth to cool
Her belly in the neighbouring pool!
Nor loudly cackles at the door;
For cackling shows the goose is poor.
But, when she must be turn’d to graze,
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JONATHAN SWIFT
And round the barren common strays,
Hard exercise, and harder fare,
Soon make my dame grow lank and spare;
Her body light, she tries her wings,
And scorns the ground, and upward springs;
While all the parish, as she fl ies,
Hear sounds harmonious from the skies.
Such is the poet fresh in pay,
The third night’s profi ts of his play;
His morning draughts till noon can swill,
Among his brethren of the quill:
With good roast beef his belly full,
Grown lazy, foggy, fat, and dull,
Deep sunk in plenty and delight,
What poet e’er could take his fl ight?
Or, stuff’d with phlegm up to the throat,
What poet e’er could sing a note?
Nor Pegasus could bear the load
Along the high celestial road;
The steed, oppress’d, would break his girth,
To raise the lumber from the earth.
But view him in another scene,
When all his drink is Hippocrene,
His money spent, his patrons fail,
His credit out for cheese and ale;
His two-years coat so smooth and bare,
Through every thread it lets in air;
With hungry meals his body pined,
His guts and belly full of wind;
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THE POEMS • II
And, like a jockey for a race,
His fl esh brought down to fl ying case:
Now his exalted spirit loathes
Encumbrances of food and clothes;
And up he rises like a vapour,
Supported high on wings of paper.
He singing fl ies, and fl ying sings,
While from below all Grub-Street rings.
THE SOUTH-SEA PROJECT
Ye wise philosophers, explain
What magic makes our money rise,
When dropt into the Southern main;
Or do these jugglers cheat our eyes?
Put in your money fairly told;
Presto! be gone – ‘Tis here again:
Ladies and gentlemen, behold,
Here’s every piece as big as ten.
Thus in a basin drop a shilling,
Then fi ll the vessel to the brim,
You shall observe, as you are fi lling,
The pond’rous metal seems to swim:
It rises both in bulk and height,
Behold it swelling like a sop;
The liquid medium cheats your sight:
Behold it mounted to the top!
149
JONATHAN SWIFT
In stock three hundred thousand pounds,
I have in view a lord’s estate;
My manors all contiguous round!
A coach-and-six, and served in plate!
Thus the deluded bankrupt raves,
Puts all upon a desperate bet;
Then plunges in the Southern waves,
Dipt over head and ears – in debt.
So, by a calenture misled,
The mariner with rapture sees,
On the smooth ocean’s azure bed,
Enamell’d fi elds and verdant trees:
With eager haste he longs to rove
In that fantastic scene, and thinks
It must be some enchanted grove;
And in he leaps, and down he sinks.
Five hundred chariots just bespoke,
Are sunk in these devouring waves,
The horses drown’d, the harness broke,
And here the owners fi nd their graves.
Like Pharaoh, by directors led,
They with their spoils went safe before;
His chariots, tumbling out the dead,
Lay shatter’d on the Red Sea shore.
Raised up on Hope’s aspiring plumes,
The young adventurer o’er the deep
An eagle’s fl ight and state assumes,
And scorns the middle way to keep.
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