Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 17.djvu/45

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OF SINKING IN POETRY.
39

With no less simplicity does he suppose, that shepherdesses tear their hair and beat their breasts at their own deaths:

Ye brighter maids, faint emblems of my fair,
With looks cast down, and with dishevell'd hair,
In bitter anguish beat your breasts, and moan
Her death untimely, as it were your own[1].

4. The Inanity, or Nothingness.

Of this the same author furnishes us with most beautiful instances.

Ah silly I, more silly than my sheep,
(Which on the flow'ry plain I once did keep[2].)

To the grave senate she could counsel give,
(Which with astonishment they did receive[3].)

He whom loud cannon could not terrify,
Falls from the grandeur of his majesty[4].

Happy, merry as a king,
Sipping dew —— you sip and sing[5].

Where you easily perceive the nothingness of every second verse.

The noise returning with returning light,

What did it?

Dispers'd the silence, and dlspell'd the night[6].

The glories of proud London to survey,
The sun himself shall rise —— by break of day[7].

5. The Expletive.

admirably exemplified in the epithets of many authors.

  1. Philips's Pastorals.
  2. Ibid.
  3. Phil. on Q Mary.
  4. Ibid.
  5. T. Cook, on a grashopper.
  6. Anon.
  7. Autor Vet.
D 4
Th'