DR. SWIFT.
Must I commend against my conscience
Such stupid blasphemy and nonsense?
To such a subject tune my lyre,
And sing like one of Milton's choir,
Where devils to a vale retreat,
And call the laws of Wisdom Fate,
Lament upon their hapless fall,
That Force free Virtue should enthrall?
Or shall the charms of Wealth and Power
Make me pollute the Muses' bower?
LAWYER.
As from the tripod of Apollo,
Hear from my desk the words that follow:
"Some, by philosophers misled,
Must honour you alive and dead;
And such as know what Greece has writ,
Must taste your irony and wit;
While most that are, or would be great,
Must dread your pen, your person hate;
And you on Drapier's hill must lie,
And there without a mitre die."
ON BURNING A DULL POEM. 1729.
AN ass's hoof alone can hold
That poisonous juice, which kills by cold.
Methought, when I this poem read,
No vessel but an ass's head
Such frigid fustian could contain;
I mean, the head without the brain.
