by John Gay
That boasts the work of Jones’ immortal hands;
Columns, with plain magnificence appear,
And graceful porches lead along the square:
Here oft’ my course I bend, when lo! from far,
I spy the furies of the foot-ball war:
The ’prentice quits his shop, to join the crew,
Encreasing crouds the flying game pursue.
Thus, as you roll the ball o’er snowy ground,
The gath’ring globe augments with ev’ry round;
But whither shall I run? the throng draws nigh,
The ball now skims the street, now soars on high;
The dextrous glazier strong returns the bound,
And jingling sashes on the penthouse sound.
An episode of the great frost. O roving Muse, recall that wond’rous year,
When winter reigned in bleak Britannia’s air;
When hoary Thames, with frosted oziers crown’d,
Was three long moons in icy fetters bound.
The waterman, forlorn along the shore,
Pensive reclines upon his useless oar,
Sees harness’d steeds desert the stony Town;
And wander roads unstable, not their own:
Wheels o’er the harden’d waters smoothly glide,
And rase with whiten’d tracks the slipp’ry tide.
Here the fat cook piles high the blazing fire,
And scarce the spit can turn the steer entire.
Booths sudden hide the Thames, long streets appear,
And num’rous games proclaim the crouded fair.
So when a gen’ral bids the martial train
Spread their encampment o’er the spatious plain;
Thick-rising tents a canvas city build,
And the loud dice resound thro’ all the field.
’Twas here the matron found a doleful fate:
In elegiac lay the woe relate,
Soft, as the breath of distant flutes, at hours,
When silent ev’ning closes up the flow’rs;
Lulling, as falling water’s hollow noise;
Indulging grief, like Philomela’s voice.
Doll ev’ry day had walk’d these treach’rous roads;
Her neck grew warpt beneath autumnal loads
Of various fruit; she now a basket bore,
That head, alas! shall basket bear no more.
Each booth she frequent past, in quest of gain,
And boys with pleasure heard her shrilling strain.
Ah Doll! all mortals must resign their breath,
And industry it self submit to death!
The cracking crystal yields, she sinks, she dyes,
Her head, chopt off, from her lost shoulders flies:
Pippins she cry’d, but death her voice confounds,
And pip-pip-pip along the ice resounds.
So when the Thracian furies Orpheus tore,
And left his bleeding trunk deform’d with gore,
His sever’d head floats down the silver tide,
His yet warm tongue for his lost consort cry’d;
Eurydice, with quiv’ring voice, he mourn’d,
And Heber’s banks Eurydice return’d.
A thaw. But now the western gale the flood unbinds,
And black’ning clouds move on with warmer winds,
The wooden Town its frail foundation leaves,
And Thames’ full urn rolls down his plenteous waves:
From ev’ry penthouse streams the fleeting snow,
And with dissolving frost the pavements flow.
How to know the days of the week. Experienc’d men, inur’d to city ways,
Need not the calendar to count their days.
When through the Town, with slow and solemn air,
Led by the nostril, walks the muzled bear;
Behind him moves majestically dull,
The pride of Hockley-hole, the surly bull;
Learn hence the periods of the week to name,
Mondays and Thursdays are the days of game.
When fishy stalls with double store are laid;
The golden-belly’d carp, the broad-finn’d maid,
Red-speckled trouts, the salmon’s silver joul,
The jointed lobster, and unscaly soale,
And luscious ’scallops, to allure the tastes
Of rigid zealots to delicious fasts;
Wednesdays and Fridays you’ll observe from hence,
Days, when our sires were doom’d to abstinence.
When dirty waters from balconies drop,
And dextrous damsels twirl the sprinkling mop,
And cleanse the spatter’d sash, and scrub the stairs,
Know Saturday’s conclusive morn appears.
Remarks on the cries of the Town. Successive crys the season’s change declare,
And mark the monthly progress of the year.
Hark, how the streets with treble voices ring,
To sell the bounteous product of the spring!
Sweet-smelling flow’rs, and elders early bud,
With nettle’s tender shoots, to cleanse the blood:
And when June’s thunder cools the sultry skies,
Ev’n Sundays are prophan’d by mackrel cries.
Walnuts the fruit’rer’s hand, in autumn, stain,
Blue plumbs, and juicy pears augment his gain;
Next oranges the longing boys entice,
To trust their copper-fortunes to the dice.
Of Christmas. When rosemary, and bays, the poet’s crown,
Are bawl’d, in frequent cries, through all the Town,
Then judge the festival of Christmas near,
Christmas, the joyous period of the year.
Now with bright holly all your temples strow,
With laurel green, and sacred mistletoe.
Now, heav’n-born Charity, thy blessings shed;
Bid meagre want uprear her sickly head:
Bid shiv’ring limbs be warm; let plenty’s bowle,
In humble roofs, make glad the needy soul.
See, see, the heav’n-born maid her blessings shed.
Lo! meagre want uprears her sickly head;
Cloath’d are the naked, and the needy glad,
While selfish avarice alone is sad.
Precepts of charity. Proud coaches pass, regardless of the moan,
Of infant orphans, and the widow’s groan;
While charity still moves the walker’s mind,
His lib’ral purse relieves the lame and blind.
Judiciously thy halfpence are bestow’d,
Where the laborious beggar sweeps the road
Whate’er you give, give ever at demand,
Nor let old-age long stretch his palsy’d hand.
Those who give late, are importun’d each day,
And still are teaz’d, because they still delay.
If e’er the miser durst his farthings spare,
He thinly spreads them through the publick square,
Where, all beside the rail, rang’d beggars lie,
And from each other catch the doleful cry;
With heav’n, for twopence, cheaply wipes his score,
Lifts up his eyes, and hasts to beggar more.
Where the brass knocker, wrapt in flannel band,
Forbids the thunder of the footman’s hand;
Th’ upholder, rueful harbinger of death
Waits, with impatience, for the dying breath;
As vultures, o’er a camp, with hov’ring flight,
Snuff up the carnage of the fight.
Here cans’t thou pass, unmindful of a pray’r,
That heav’n in mercy may thy brother spare?
Come, F—— sincere, experienc’d friend,
Thy briefs, thy deeds, and ev’n thy fees suspend;
Come, let us leave the Temple’s silent walls,
Me bus’ness to my distant lodging calls:
Through the long Strand together let us stray
,
With thee conversing, i forget the way.
Behold that narrow street, which steep descends,
Whose building to the slimy shore extends;
Here Arundell ’s fam’d structure rear’d its frame,
The street alone retains an empty name:
Where Titian’s glowing paint the canvas warm’d,
And Raphael’s fair design, with judgment, charm’d,
Now hangs the bell-man’s song, and pasted here,
The colour’d prints of Overton appear.
Where statues breath’d, the work of Phidias’ hands,
A wooden pump, or lonely watch-house stands.
There Essex’s stately pile adorn’d the shore,
There Cecil’s, Bedford’s, Viller’s, now no more.
Yet Burlington’s fair palace still remains;
Beauty within, without proportion reigns.
Beneath his eye declining art revives,
The wall with animated picture lives;
There Hendel strikes the strings, the melting strain
Transports the soul, and thrills through ev’ry vein;
There oft I enter (but with cleaner shoes)
For Burlington’s belov’d by ev’ry Muse.
The happiness of walkers. O ye associate walkers, O my friends,
Upon your state what happiness attends!
What, though no coach to frequent visit rolls,
Nor for your shilling chairmen sling their poles;
Yet still your nerves rheumatic pains defye,
Nor lazy jaundice dulls your saffron eye;
No wasting cough discharges sounds of death,
Nor wheezing asthma heaves in vain for breath;
Nor from your restless couch is heard the groan
Of burning gout, or sedentary stone.
Let others in the jolting coach confide,
Or in the leaky boat the Thames divide;
Or, box’d within the chair, contemn the street,
And trust their safety to another’s feet,
Still let me walk; for oft’ the sudden gale
Ruffles the tide, and shifts the dang’rous sail,
Then shall the passenger, too late, deplore
The whelming billow, and the faithless oar;
The drunken chairman in the kennel spurns,
The glasses shatters, and his charge o’erturns.
Who can recount the coach’s various harms?
The legs disjointed, and the broken arms?
I’ve seen a beau, in some ill-fated hour,
When o’er the stones choak’d kennels swell the show’r,
In gilded chariot loll; he with disdain
Views spatter’d passengers, all drenched in rain;
With mud fill’d high, the rumbling cart draws near,
Now rule thy prancing steeds, lac’d charioteer!
The dustman lashes on with spiteful rage,
His pond’rous spokes thy painted wheel engage,
Crush’d is thy pride, down falls the shrieking beau,
The slabby pavement crystal fragments strow,
Black floods of mire th’ embroider’d coat disgrace,
And mud enwraps the honours of his face.
So when dread Jove, the son of Phoebus hurl’d,
Scarr’d with dark thunder, to the nether world;
The headstrong coursers tore the silver reins,
And the sun’s beamy ruin gilds the plains.
If the pale walker pants with weak’ning ills,
His sickly hand is stor’d with friendly bills:
From hence, he learns the seventh-born doctor’s fame,
From hence, he learns the cheapest tailor’s name.
Shall the large mutton smoak upon your boards?
Such, Newgate’s copious market best affords;
Would’st though with mighty beef augment thy meal?
Seek Leaden-hall; St. James’s sends thee veal.
Thames-street gives cheeses; Covent-garden fruits;
Moor-fields old books; and Monmouth-street old suits.
Hence may’st thou well supply the wants of life,
Support thy family, and clothe thy wife.
Volumes, on shelter’d stalls, expanded lie,
And various science lures the learned eye;
The bending shelves with pond’rous scholiasts groan,
And deep divines to modern shops unknown:
Here, like a bee that on industrious wing,
Collects the various odours of the spring,
Walkers, at leisure, learning’s flow’rs may spoil,
Nor watch the wasting of the midnight oil,
May morals snatch’d from Plutarch’s tatter’d page,
A mildew’d Bacon, or Stagyra’s sage.
Here saunt’ring ’prentices o’er Otway weep,
O’er Congreve smile, or over d—— sleep;
Pleas’d sempstresses the Lock’s fam’d rape unfold,
And Squirts* read Garth, ’till apozems grow cold.
O Lintott, let my labours obvious lie,
Rang’d on thy stall, for ev’ry curious eye;
So shall the poor these precepts gratis know,
And to my verse their future safeties owe.
What walker shall his mean ambition fix,
On the false lustre of a coach and six?
Let the vain virgin, lur’d by glaring show,
Sigh for the liv’rys of th’embroider’d beau.
See, yon’ bright chariot on its harness swing,
With Flanders mares, and on an arched spring,
That wretch, to gain an equipage and place,
Betray’d his sister to a lewd embrace.
This coach, that with the blazon’d ’scutcheon glows,
Vain of his unknown race the coxcomb shows.
Here the brib’d lawyer, sunk in velvet, sleeps;
The starving orphan, as he passes, weeps;
There flames a fool, begirt with tinselled slaves,
Who wastes the wealth of a whole race of knaves.
That other, with a clustering train behind,
Owes his new honours to a sordid mind.
This next in court-fidelity excels,
The publick rifles, and his country sells.
May the proud chariot never be my fate,
If purchas’d at so mean, so dear a rate;
O rather give me sweet content on foot,
Wrapt in my vertue, and a good surtout!
Book III
OF WALKING THE STREETS BY NIGHT.
O Trivia, goddess, leave these low abodes,
And traverse o’er the wide ethereal roads,
Celestial queen, put on thy robes of light,
Now Cynthia nam’d, fair regent of the night.
At sight of thee, the villain sheaths his sword,
Nor scales the wall, to steal the wealthy hoard.
Oh! may thy silver lamp in Heav’n’s high bow’r
Direct my footsteps in the midnight hour.
The evening. When night first bids the twinkling stars appear,
Or with her cloudy vest inwraps the air,
Then swarms the busy street; with caution tread,
Where the shop-windows falling threat thy head;
Now lab’rers home return, and join their strength
To bear the tott’ring plank, or ladder’s length;
Still fix thy eyes intent upon the throng,
And as the passes open, wind along.
Of the pass of St. Clements. Where the fair columns of St. Clement stand,
Whose straiten’d bounds encroach upon the Strand;
Where the low penthouse bows the walker’s head,
And the rough pavement wounds the yielding tread;
Where not a post protects the narrow space,
And strung in twines, combs dangle in thy face;
Summon at once thy courage, rouse thy care,
Stand firm, look back, be resol
ute, beware.
Forth issuing from steep lanes, the collier’s steeds
Drag the black load; another cart succeeds,
Team follows team, crouds heap’d on crouds appear,
And wait impatient, ’till the road grow clear.
Now all the pavement sounds with trampling feet,
And the mixt hurry barricades the street.
Entangled here, the waggon’s lengthen’d team
Crack the tough harness; here a pond’rous beam
Lies over-turn’d athwart; for slaughter fed,
Here lowing bullocks raise their horned head.
Now oaths grow loud, with coaches coaches jar,
And the smart blow provokes the sturdy war;
From the high box they whirl the thong around,
And with the twining lash their shins resound:
Their rage ferments, more dang’rous wounds they try,
And the blood gushes down their painful eye.
And now on foot the frowning warriors light,
And with their pond’rous fists renew the fight;
Blow answers blow, their cheeks are ’smear’d with blood,
’Till down they fall, and grappling roll in mud.
So when two boars, in wild ytene* bred,
Or on Westphalia’s fatt’ning chestnuts fed,
Gnash their sharp tusks, and rous’d with equal fire,
Dispute the reign of some luxurious mire;
In the black flood they wallow o’er and o’er,
’Till their arm’d jaws distill with foam and gore.
Of pick-pockets. Where the mob gathers, swiftly shoot along,
Nor idly mingle in the noisy throng.
Lur’d by the silver hilt, amid the swarm,
The subtil artist will thy side disarm.
Nor is thy flaxen wig with safety worn;
High on the shoulder, in the basket born,
Lurks the sly boy; whose hand to rapine bred,
Plucks off the curling honours of the head.
Here dives the skulking thief, with practis’d slight,
And unfelt fingers make thy pocket light.
Where’s now thy watch, with all its trinkets, flown?
And thy late snuff-box is no more thy own.
But lo! his bolder theftsome tradesman spies,
Swift from his prey the scudding lurcher flies;
Dext’rous he ’scapes the coach, with nimble bounds,
While ev’ry honest tongue ‘Stop thief ’ resounds.
So speeds the wily fox, alarm’d by fear,
Who lately filch’d the turkey’s callow care;
Hounds following hounds, grow louder as he flies,
And injur’d tenants joyn the hunter’s cries.
Breathless he stumbling falls: ill-fated boy!
Why did not honest work thy youth employ?