We, gentlemen, are your assisters,
We'll come, and hold you by the chin. —"
Alas! all is not gold that glisters,
Ten thousand sink by leaping in.
O! would those patriots be so kind,
Here in the deep to wash their hands,
Then, like Pactolus, we should find
The sea indeed had golden sands.
A shilling in the bath you fling,
The silver takes a nobler hue,
By magick virtue in the spring,
And seems a guinea to your view.
But, as a guinea will not pass
At market for a farthing more,
Shown through a multiplying glass,
Than what it always did before:
So cast it in the Southern seas,
Or view it through a jobber's bill;
Put on what spectacles you please,
Your guinea's but a guinea still.
One night a fool into a brook
Thus from a hillock looking down,
The golden stars for guineas took,
And silver Cynthia for a crown.
The point he could no longer doubt;
He ran, he leapt into the flood:
There sprawl'd a while, and scarce got out,
All cover'd o'er with slime and mud.
"Upon the water cast thy bread,
And after many days thou'lt find it;"
But gold, upon this ocean spread,
Shall sink, and leave no mark behind it:
Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 7.djvu/205
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THE SOUTH SEA PROJECT.
193
Vol. VII.
O
There
