( 185 )
ANSWER. BY DR. SWIFT.
PRESUMPTUOUS bard! how could you dare
A woman with a cloud compare?
Strange pride and insolence you show
Inferiour mortals there below.
And is our thunder in your ears
So frequent or so loud as theirs?
Alas! our thunder soon goes out;
And only makes you more devout.
Then is not female clatter worse,
That drives you not to pray, but curse?
We hardly thunder thrice a year;
The bolt discharged, the sky grows clear;
But every sublunary dowdy,
The more she scolds, the more she's cloudy.
Some critick may object, perhaps,
That clouds are blam'd for giving claps;
But what, alas! are claps ethereal
Compar'd for mischief to venereal?
Can clouds give buboes, ulcers, blotches,
Or from your noses dig out notches?
We leave the body sweet and sound;
We kill, 'tis true, but never wound.
You know a cloudy sky bespeaks
Fair weather when the morning breaks;
But women in a cloudy plight
Foretell a storm to last till night.
A cloud in proper seasons pours
His blessings down in fruitful showers;
But woman was by fate design'd
To pour down curses on mankind.
