Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 7.djvu/204

So, when upon a moonshine night
⁠An ass was drinking at a stream;
A cloud arose, and stopt the light,
⁠By intercepting every beam:

The day of judgment will be soon,
⁠Cries out a sage among the crowd;
An ass has swallow'd up the moon!
⁠The moon lay safe behind the cloud.

Each poor subscriber to the sea
⁠Sinks down at once, and there he lies;
Directors fall as well as they,
⁠Their fall is but a trick to rise.

So fishes, rising from the main,
⁠Can soar with moisten'd wings on high;
The moisture dry'd, they sink again,
⁠And dip their fins again to fly.

Undone at play, the female troops
⁠Come here their losses to retrieve;
Ride o'er the waves in spacious hoops,
⁠Like Lapland witches in a sieve.

Thus Venus to the sea descends,
⁠As poets feign; but where's the moral?
It shows the Queen of Love intends
⁠To search the deep for pearl and coral.

The sea is richer than the land,
⁠I heard it from my grannam's mouth,
Which now I clearly understand;
⁠For by the sea she meant the South.

Thus by directors we are told,
⁠"Pray, gentlemen, believe your eyes;
Our ocean's cover'd o'er with gold,
⁠Look round, and see how thick it lies:

" We