<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=426435" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Verses on the Death of Dr. Swift, D.S.P.D.</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">As Rochefoucauld his maxims drew <br>From Nature, I believe 'em true:<br>They argue no corrupted mind<br>In him; the fault is in mankind.<br>This maxim more than all the rest<br>Is thought too base for human breast:<br>'In all distresses of our friends,<br>We first consult our private ends;<br>While Nature, kindly bent to ease us,<br>Points out some circumstance to please us.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">If this perhaps your patience move,<br>Let reason and experience prove.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">We all behold with envious eyes<br>Our equal rais'd above our size.<br>Who would not at a crowded show<br>Stand high himself, keep others low?<br>I love my friend as well as you<br>But would not have him stop my view.<br>Then let him have the higher post:<br>I ask but for an inch at most.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">If in a battle you should find<br>One, whom you love of all mankind,<br>Had some heroic action done,<br>A champion kill'd, or trophy won;<br>Rather than thus be overtopt,<br>Would you not wish his laurels cropt?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Dear honest Ned is in the gout,<br>Lies rack'd with pain, and you without:<br>How patiently you hear him groan!<br>How glad the case is not your own!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">What poet would not grieve to see<br>His brethren write as well as he?<br>But rather than they should excel,<br>He'd wish his rivals all in hell.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Her end when emulation misses,<br>She turns to envy, stings and hisses:<br>The strongest friendship yields to pride,<br>Unless the odds be on our side.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Vain human kind! fantastic race!<br>Thy various follies who can trace?<br>Self-love, ambition, envy, pride,<br>Their empire in our hearts divide.<br>Give others riches, power, and station,<br>'Tis all on me a usurpation.<br>I have no title to aspire;<br>Yet, when you sink, I seem the higher.<br>In Pope I cannot read a line,<br>But with a sigh I wish it mine;<br>When he can in one couplet fix<br>More sense than I can do in six;<br>It gives me such a jealous fit,<br>I cry, 'Pox take him and his wit!'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Why must I be outdone by Gay<br>In my own hum'rous biting way?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Arbuthnot is no more my friend,<br>Who dares to irony pretend,<br>Which I was born to introduce,<br>Refin'd it first, and show'd its use.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">St. John, as well as Pultney, knows<br>That I had some repute for prose;<br>And, till they drove me out of date,<br>Could maul a minister of state.<br>If they have mortify'd my pride,<br>And made me throw my pen aside;<br>If with such talents Heav'n has blest 'em,<br>Have I not reason to detest 'em?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">To all my foes, dear Fortune, send<br>Thy gifts; but never to my friend:<br>I tamely can endure the first,<br>But this with envy makes me burst.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Thus much may serve by way of proem:<br>Proceed we therefore to our poem.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The time is not remote, when I<br>Must by the course of nature die;<br>When I foresee my special friends<br>Will try to find their private ends:<br>Tho' it is hardly understood<br>Which way my death can do them good,<br>Yet thus, methinks, I hear 'em speak:<br>'See, how the Dean begins to break!<br>Poor gentleman, he droops apace!<br>You plainly find it in his face.<br>That old vertigo in his head<br>Will never leave him till he's dead.<br>Besides, his memory decays:<br>He recollects not what he says;<br>He cannot call his friends to mind:<br>Forgets the place where last he din'd;<br>Plies you with stories o'er and o'er;<br>He told them fifty times before.<br>How does he fancy we can sit<br>To hear his out-of-fashion'd wit?<br>But he takes up with younger folks,<br>Who for his wine will bear his jokes.<br>Faith, he must make his stories shorter,<br>Or change his comrades once a quarter:<br>In half the time he talks them round,<br>There must another set be found.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'For poetry he's past his prime:<br>He takes an hour to find a rhyme;<br>His fire is out, his wit decay'd,<br>His fancy sunk, his Muse a jade.<br>I'd have him throw away his pen;-<br>But there's no talking to some men!'</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>And then their tenderness appears,<br>By adding largely to my years:<br>'He's older than he would be reckon'd<br>And well remembers Charles the Second.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>'He hardly drinks a pint of wine;<br>And that, I doubt, is no good sign.<br>His stomach too begins to fail:<br>Last year we thought him strong and hale;<br>But now he's quite another thing:<br>I wish he may hold out till spring.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Then hug themselves, and reason thus:<br>'It is not yet so bad with us.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>In such a case, they talk in tropes,<br>And by their fears express their hopes:<br>Some great misfortune to portend,<br>No enemy can match a friend.<br>With all the kindness they profess,<br>The merit of a lucky guess<br>(When daily 'How d'ye's' come of course,<br>And servants answer, 'Worse and worse!')<br>Would please 'em better, than to tell,<br>That, 'God be prais'd, the Dean is well.'<br>Then he who prophecy'd the best<br>Approves his foresight to the rest:<br>'You know I always fear'd the worst,<br>And often told you so at first.'<br>He'd rather choose that I should die,<br>Than his prediction prove a lie.<br>Not one foretells I shall recover;<br>But all agree to give me over.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Yet, should some neighbour feel a pain<br>Just in the parts where I complain,<br>How many a message would he send?<br>What hearty prayers that I should mend?<br>Inquire what regimen I kept,<br>What gave me ease, and how I slept?<br>And more lament when I was dead,<br>Than all the sniv'llers round my bed.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>My good companions, never fear;<br>For though you may mistake a year,<br>Though your prognostics run too fast,<br>They must be verify'd at last.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Behold the fatal day arrive!<br>'How is the Dean?'-'He's just alive.'<br>Now the departing prayer is read;<br>'He hardly breathes.'-'The Dean is dead.'<br>Before the passing-bell begun,<br>The news thro' half the town has run.<br>'O, may we all for death prepare!<br>What has he left? and who's his heir?'-<br>'I know no more than what the news is;<br>'Tis all bequeath'd to public uses.'-<br>'To public use! a perfect whim!<br>What had the public done for him?<br>Mere envy, avarice, and pride:<br>He gave it all-but first he died.<br>And had the Dean, in all the nation,<br>No worthy friend, no poor relation?<br>So ready to do strangers good,<br>Forgetting his own flesh and blood?'</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Now Grub-Street wits are all employ'd;<br>With elegies the town is cloy'd:<br>Some paragraph in ev'ry paper<br>To curse the Dean or bless the Drapier.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>The doctors, tender of their fame,<br>Wisely on me lay all the blame:<br>'We must confess his case was nice;<br>But he would never take advice.<br>Had he been rul'd, for aught appears,<br>He might have liv'd these twenty years;<br>For, when we open'd him, we found<br>That all his vital parts were sound.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>From Dublin soon to London spread,<br>'Tis told at Court, the Dean is dead.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Kind Lady Suffolk in the spleen<br>Runs laughing up to tell the Queen.<br>The Queen, so gracious, mild, and good,<br>Cries, 'Is he gone! 'tis time he should.<br>He's dead, you say; why, let him rot:<br>I'm glad the medals were forgot.<br>I promis'd them, I own; but when?<br>I only was the Princess then;<br>But now, as consort of a king,<br>You know, 'tis quite a different thing.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Now Chartres, at Sir Robert's levee,<br>Tells with a sneer the tidings heavy:<br>'Why, is he dead without his shoes?'<br>Cries Bob, 'I'm sorry for the news:<br>O, were the wretch but living still,<br>And in his place my good friend Will!<br>Or had a mitre on his head,<br>Provided Bolingbroke were dead!'</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Now Curll his shop from rubbish drains:<br>Three genuine tomes of Swift's remains!<br>And then, to make them pass the glibber,<br>Revis'd by Tibbalds, Moore, and Cibber.<br>He'll treat me as he does my betters,<br>Publish my will, my life, my letters:<br>Revive the libels born to die;<br>Which Pope must bear, as well as I.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Here shift the scene, to represent<br>How those I love my death lament.<br>Poor Pope will grieve a month, and Gay<br>A week, and Arbuthnot a day.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>St. John himself will scarce forbear<br>To bite his pen, and drop a tear.<br>The rest will give a shrug, and cry,<br>'I'm sorry-but we all must die!'<br>Indifference, clad in Wisdom's guise,<br>All fortitude of mind supplies:<br>For how can stony bowels melt<br>In those who never pity felt?<br>When we are lash'd, they kiss the rod,<br>Resigning to the will of God.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>The fools, my juniors by a year,<br>Are tortur'd with suspense and fear;<br>Who wisely thought my age a screen,<br>When death approach'd, to stand between:<br>The screen remov'd, their hearts are trembling;<br>They mourn for me without dissembling.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>My female friends, whose tender hearts<br>Have better learn'd to act their parts,<br>Receive the news in doleful dumps:<br>'The Dean is dead: (and what is trumps?)<br>Then, Lord have mercy on his soul!<br>(Ladies, I'll venture for the vole.)<br>Six deans, they say, must bear the pall:<br>(I wish I knew what king to call.)<br>Madam, your husband will attend<br>The funeral of so good a friend.<br>No, madam, 'tis a shocking sight:<br>And he's engag'd to-morrow night:<br>My Lady Club would take it ill,<br>If he should fail her at quadrille.<br>He lov'd the Dean-(I lead a heart)<br>But dearest friends, they say, must part.<br>His time was come: he ran his race;<br>We hope he's in a better place.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Why do we grieve that friends should die?<br>No loss more easy to supply.<br>One year is past; a different scene!<br>No further mention of the Dean;<br>Who now, alas! no more is miss'd,<br>Than if he never did exist.<br>Where's now this fav'rite of Apollo!<br>Departed:-and his works must follow;<br>Must undergo the common fate;<br>His kind of wit is out of date.<br>Some country squire to Lintot goes,<br>Inquires for 'Swift in Verse and Prose.'<br>Says Lintot, 'I have heard the name;<br>He died a year ago.'-'The same.'<br>He searcheth all his shop in vain.<br>'Sir, you may find them in Duck-lane;<br>I sent them with a load of books,<br>Last Monday to the pastry-cook's.<br>To fancy they could live a year!<br>I find you're but a stranger here.<br>The Dean was famous in his time,<br>And had a kind of knack at rhyme.<br>His way of writing now is past;<br>The town hath got a better taste;<br>I keep no antiquated stuff,<br>But spick and span I have enough.<br>Pray do but give me leave to show 'em;<br>Here's Colley Cibber's birth-day poem.<br>This ode you never yet have seen,<br>By Stephen Duck, upon the Queen.<br>Then here's a letter finely penn'd<br>Against the Craftsman and his friend:<br>It clearly shows that all reflection<br>On ministers is disaffection.<br>Next, here's Sir Robert's vindication,<br>And Mr. Henley's last oration.<br>The hawkers have not got 'em yet:<br>Your honour please to buy a set?</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>'Here's Woolston's tracts, the twelfth edition;<br>'Tis read by every politician:<br>The country members, when in town,<br>To all their boroughs send them down;<br>You never met a thing so smart;<br>The courtiers have them all by heart:<br>Those maids of honour who can read<br>Are taught to use them for their creed.<br>The rev'rend author's good intention<br>Hath been rewarded with a pension.<br>He doth an honour to his gown,<br>By bravely running priestcraft down:<br>He shows, as sure as God's in Gloucester,<br>That Jesus was a grand imposter;<br>That all his miracles were cheats,<br>Perform'd as jugglers do their feats:<br>The church had never such a writer;<br>A shame he hath not got a mitre!'</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Suppose me dead; and then suppose<br>A club assembled at the Rose ;<br>Where, from discourse of this and that,<br>I grow the subject of their chat.<br>And while they toss my name about,<br>With favour some, and some without,<br>One, quite indiff'rent in the cause,<br>My character impartial draws:</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>'The Dean, if we believe report,<br>Was never ill receiv'd at Court.<br>As for his works in verse and prose<br>I own myself no judge of those;<br>Nor can I tell what critics thought 'em:<br>But this I know, all people bought 'em.<br>As with a moral view design'd<br>To cure the vices of mankind:<br>His vein, ironically grave,<br>Expos'd the fool, and lash'd the knave.<br>To steal a hint was never known,<br>But what he writ was all his own.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>'He never thought an honour done him,<br>Because a duke was proud to own him,<br>Would rather slip aside and choose<br>To talk with wits in dirty shoes;<br>Despis'd the fools with stars and garters,<br>So often seen caressing Chartres.<br>He never courted men in station,<br>Nor persons held in admiration;<br>Of no man's greatness was afraid,<br>Because he sought for no man's aid.<br>Though trusted long in great affairs<br>He gave himself no haughty airs:<br>Without regarding private ends,<br>Spent all his credit for his friends;<br>And only chose the wise and good;<br>No flatt'rers; no allies in blood:<br>But succour'd virtue in distress,<br>And seldom fail'd of good success;<br>As numbers in their hearts must own,<br>Who, but for him, had been unknown.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>'With princes kept a due decorum,<br>But never stood in awe before 'em.<br>He follow'd David's lesson just:<br>'In princes never put thy trust';<br>And, would you make him truly sour,<br>Provoke him with a slave in pow'r.<br>The Irish senate if you nam'd,<br>With what impatience he declaim'd!<br>Fair Liberty was all his cry,<br>For her he stood prepar'd to die;<br>For her he boldly stood alone;<br>For her he oft expos'd his own.<br>Two kingdoms, just as faction led,<br>Had set a price upon his head;<br>But not a traitor could be found<br>To sell him for six hundred pound.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>'Had he but spar'd his tongue and pen<br>He might have rose like other men:<br>But pow'r was never in his thought,<br>And wealth he valu'd not a groat:<br>Ingratitude he often found,<br>And pity'd those who meant the wound:<br>But kept the tenor of his mind,<br>To merit well of human kind:<br>Nor made a sacrifice of those<br>Who still were true, to please his foes.<br>He labour'd many a fruitless hour<br>To reconcile his friends in pow'r;<br>Saw mischief by a faction brewing,<br>While they pursu'd each other's ruin.<br>But, finding vain was all his care,<br>He left the Court in mere despair.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>'And, oh! how short are human schemes!<br>Here ended all our golden dreams.<br>What St. John's skill in state affairs,<br>What Ormond's valour, Oxford's cares,<br>To save their sinking country lent,<br>Was all destroy'd by one event.<br>Too soon that precious life was ended,<br>On which alone our weal depended.<br>When up a dangerous faction starts,<br>With wrath and vengeance in their hearts;<br>By solemn League and Cov'nant bound,<br>To ruin, slaughter, and confound;<br>To turn religion to a fable,<br>And make the government a Babel;<br>Pervert the law, disgrace the gown,<br>Corrupt the senate, rob the crown;<br>To sacrifice old England's glory,<br>And make her infamous in story:<br>When such a tempest shook the land,<br>How could unguarded Virtue stand?</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>'With horror, grief, despair, the Dean<br>Beheld the dire destructive scene:<br>His friends in exile, or the tower,<br>Himself within the frown of power,<br>Pursu'd by base envenom'd pens,<br>Far to the land of slaves and fens;<br>A servile race in folly nurs'd,<br>Who truckle most when treated worst.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>'By innocence and resolution,<br>He bore continual persecution,<br>While numbers to preferment rose,<br>Whose merits were, to be his foes;<br>When ev'n his own familiar friends,<br>Intent upon their private ends,<br>Like renegadoes now he feels,<br>Against him lifting up their heels.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>'The Dean did by his pen defeat<br>An infamous destructive cheat;<br>Taught fools their int'rest how to know,<br>And gave them arms to ward the blow.<br>Envy hath own'd it was his doing,<br>To save that helpless land from ruin;<br>While they who at the steerage stood,<br>And reap'd the profit, sought his blood.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>'To save them from their evil fate,<br>In him was held a crime of state.<br>A wicked monster on the bench,<br>Whose fury blood could never quench,<br>As vile and profligate a villain,<br>As modern Scroggs, or old Tresilian,<br>Who long all justice had discarded,<br>Nor fear'd he God, nor man regarded,<br>Vow'd on the Dean his rage to vent,<br>And make him of his zeal repent;<br>But Heav'n his innocence defends,<br>The grateful people stand his friends.<br>Not strains of law, nor judge's frown,<br>Nor topics brought to please the crown,<br>Nor witness hir'd, nor jury pick'd,<br>Prevail to bring him in convict.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>'In exile, with a steady heart,<br>He spent his life's declining part;<br>Where folly, pride, and faction sway,<br>Remote from St. John, Pope, and Gay.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>'His friendships there, to few confin'd,<br>Were always of the middling kind;<br>No fools of rank, a mongrel breed,<br>Who fain would pass for lords indeed:<br>Where titles gave no right or power<br>And peerage is a wither'd flower;<br>He would have held it a disgrace,<br>If such a wretch had known his face.<br>On rural squires, that kingdom's bane,<br>He vented oft his wrath in vain;<br>Biennial squires to market brought;<br>Who sell their souls and votes for nought;<br>The nation stripp'd, go joyful back,<br>To rob the church, their tenants rack,<br>Go snacks with thieves and rapparees,<br>And keep the peace to pick up fees;<br>In ev'ry job to have a share,<br>A jail or barrack to repair;<br>And turn the tax for public roads,<br>Commodious to their own abodes.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>'Perhaps I may allow, the Dean<br>Had too much satire in his vein;<br>And seem'd determin'd not to starve it,<br>Because no age could more deserve it.<br>Yet malice never was his aim;<br>He lash'd the vice, but spar'd the name;<br>No individual could resent,<br>Where thousands equally were meant.<br>His satire points at no defect,<br>But what all mortals may correct;<br>For he abhorr'd that senseless tribe<br>Who call it humour when they gibe.<br>He spar'd a hump, or crooked nose,<br>Whose owners set not up for beaux.<br>True genuine dulness mov'd his pity,<br>Unless it offer'd to be witty.<br>Those who their ignorance confess'd<br>He ne'er offended with a jest;<br>But laugh'd to hear an idiot quote<br>A verse from Horace, learn'd by rote.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>'He knew a hundred pleasant stories<br>With all the turns of Whigs and Tories:<br>Was cheerful to his dying day;<br>And friends would let him have his way.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>'He gave the little wealth he had<br>To build a house for fools and mad;<br>And show'd by one satiric touch,<br>No nation wanted it so much.<br>That kingdom he hath left his debtor,<br>I wish it soon may have a better.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Jonathan+Swift">Jonathan Swift</a><div class=q> <img src="https://www.citatepedia.ro/g/32share.png" style="float:left" alt="Share"> <script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=426435" data-title="Verses on the Death of Dr. Swift, D.S.P.D. de Jonathan Swift" data-description="As Rochefoucauld his maxims drew From Nature, I believe 'em true: They argue no corrupted mind In him; the fault is in mankind. This maxim more than all the rest Is thought too base for human breast: 'In all distresses of our friends, We first co..."></div> </div> </div>

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