Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 7.djvu/242

With me you left him out at nurse,
Yet are you not my debtor;
For, as he hardly can be worse,
I ne'er could make him better.

He rhymes and puns, and puns and rhymes,
Just as he did before;
And, when he's lash'd a hundred times,
He rhymes and puns the more.

When rods are laid on schoolboys bums,
The more they frisk and skip:
The schoolboy's top but louder hums,
The more they use the whip.

Thus, a lean beast beneath a load
(A beast of Irish breed)
Will, in a tedious, dirty road,
Outgo the prancing steed.

You knock him down and down in vain,
And lay him flat before ye,
For, soon as he gets up again,
He'll strut, and cry, Victoria!

At every stroke of mine, he fell,
'Tis true he roar'd and cry'd;
But his impenetrable shell
Could feel no harm beside.

The tortoise thus, with motion slow,
Will clamber up a wall;
Yet, senseless to the hardest blow,
Gets nothing but a fall.

Dear Dan, then, why should you, or I,
Attack his pericrany?
And, since it is in vain to try,
We'll send him to Delany.

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