Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 8.djvu/44

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34
SWIFT’S POEMS

How, with a weakly warbling tongue,
Of brazen knight they vainly sung:
A subject for their genius fit;
He dares defy both sense and wit.
What dares he not? He can, we know it,
A laureat make that is no poet;
A judge, without the least pretence
To common law, or common sense;
A bishop that is no divine
And coxcombs in red ribbons shine:
Nay, he can make, what's greater far,
A middle state 'twixt peace and war;
And say, there shall, for years together,
Be peace and war, and both, and neither.
Happy, O Market-hill! at least,
That court and courtiers have no taste:
You never else had known the dean,
But as of old, obscurely lain;
All things gone on the same dull track,
And Drapier's-hill[1] been still Drumlack;
But now your name with Penshurst vies,
Aud wing'd with fame shall reach the skies.

  1. The dean gave this name to a farm called Drumlack, which he rented of sir Arthur Acheson, whose seat lay between that and Market-hill; and intended to build a house upon it, but afterward changed his mind.
DRA-