Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 17.djvu/48

If not, a prize I will myself decree,
From him, or him, or else perhaps from thee^[1].

—— Full of days was he;
Two ages past, he lived the third to see^[2].

The king of forty kings, and honour'd more
By mighty Jove, than e'er was king before^[3].

That I may know, if thou my pray'r deny,
The most despised of all the gods am I^[4].

Then let my mother once be rul'd by me,
Though much more wise than I pretend to be^[5].

Or these, of the same hand:

I leave the arts of poetry and verse
To them that practise them with more success.
Of greater truths I now prepare to tell,
And so at once, dear friend and muse, farewel^[6].

Sometimes a single word will vulgarize a poetical idea; as where a ship set on fire owes all the spirit of the bathos to one choice word, that ends the line.

And his scorch'd ribs the hot contagion fry'd^[7].

And in that description of a world in ruins:

Should the whole frame of nature round him break,
He, unconcern'd, would hear the mighty crack^[8].

So also in these,

Beasts tame and savage to the river's brink
Come from the fields and wild abodes — to drink^[9].

1. Ti. Hom. II. i. p. 11.
2. P. 17.
3. P. 19.
4. P. 34.
5. P. 38.
6. Tons. Misc. 12mo. vol. iv. p. 292. 4th edit.
7. Ibid. vol. vi. p. 119.
8. Job, p. 263.
9. Prince Arthur, p. 151.

Frequently