They, as each torrent drives, with rapid force,
From Smithfield to St 'Pulchre's shape their course,
And in huge confluence join'd at Snowhill ridge,
Fall from the conduit prone to Holbourn bridge.
| Sweepings from butchers' stalls, dung, guts, and blood, | |
| Drown'd puppies, stinking sprats, all drench'd in mud, | |
| Dead cats, and turnip-tops come tumbling down the flood. |
ON THE LITTLE HOUSE BY THE CHURCHYARD OF CASTLENOCK. 1710.
WHOWEVER pleases to inquire
Why yonder steeple wants a spire,
The gray old fellow, poet Joe[1],
The philosophick cause will show.
Once on a time a western blast
At least twelve inches overcast,
Reckoning roof, weathercock, and all,
Which came with a prodigious fall;
And tumbling topsyturvy round
Lit with its bottom on the ground.
For, by the laws of gravitation,
It fell into its proper station.
This is the little strutting pile,
You see just by the churchyard stile;
The walls in tumbling gave a knock,
And thus the steeple got a shock;
