Divided hearts, united states.
See how the double nation lies;
Like a rich coat with skirts of frieze:
As if a man in making posies
Should bundle thistles up with roses.
Whoever yet a union saw
Of kingdoms, without faith or law.
Henceforward let no statesman dare,
A kingdom to a ship compare;
Lest he should call our commonweal,
A vessel with a double keel:
Which just like ours, new rigged and manned,
And got about a league from land,
By change of wind to leeward side
The pilot knew not how to guide.
So tossing faction will o’erwhelm
Our crazy double-bottomed realm.
A Description of the Morning
Now hardly here and there a hackney coach
Appearing, showed the ruddy morn’s approach.
Now Betty from her master’s bed has flown,
And softly stole to discompose her own.
The slipshod prentice from his master’s door
Had pared the dirt, and sprinkled round the floor.
Now Moll had whirled her mop with dexterous airs,
Prepared to scrub the entry and the stairs.
The youth with broomy stumps began to trace
The kennel-edge, where wheels had worn the place.
The smallcoal man was heard with cadence deep;
Till drowned in shriller notes of chimney-sweep.
Duns at his Lordship’s gate began to meet;
And Brickdust Moll had screamed through half a street.
The turnkey now his flock returning sees,
Duly let out a-nights to steal for fees.
The watchful bailiffs take their silent stands;
And schoolboys lag with satchels in their hands.
from Cadenus and Vanessa
Cadenus many things had writ;
Vanessa much esteemed his wit;
And called for his poetic works;
Meantime the boy in secret lurks,
And while the book was in her hand,
The urchin from his private stand
Took aim, and shot with all his strength
A dart of such prodigious length,
It pierced the feeble volume through,
And deep transfixed her bosom too.
Some lines more moving than the rest,
Stuck to the point that pierced her breast;
And born directly to the heart,
With pains unknown increased her smart.
Vanessa, not in years a score,
Dreams of a gown of forty-four;
Imaginary charms can find,
In eyes with reading almost blind;
Cadenus now no more appears
Declined in health, advanced in years.
She fancies music in his tongue,
Nor further looks, but thinks him young.
What mariner is not afraid,
To venture in a ship decayed?
What planter will attempt to yoke
A sapling with a fallen oak?
As years increase, she brighter shines,
Cadenus with each day declines,
And he must fall a prey to time,
While she continues in her prime.
Mary the Cook-Maid’s Letter to Dr Sheridan
Well; if ever I saw such another man since my mother bound my head,
You a gentleman! marry come up, I wonder where you were bred?
I am sure such words does not become a man of your cloth,
I would not give such language to a dog, faith and troth.
Yes; you called my master a knave; fie Mr Sheridan, ’tis a shame
For a parson, who should know better things, to come out with such a name.
Knave in your teeth, Mr Sheridan, ’tis both a shame and a sin,
And the Dean my master is an honester man than you and all your kin:
He has more goodness in his little finger, than you have in your whole body,
My master is a parsonable man, and not a spindle-shanked hoddy-doddy.
And now whereby I find you would fain make an excuse,
Because my master one day, in anger, called you goose.
Which, and I am sure I have been his servant four years since October,
And he never called me worse than ‘sweetheart’, drunk or sober:
Not that I know his Reverence was ever concerned to my knowledge,
Though you and your come-rogues keep him out so late in your wicked college.
You say you will eat grass on his grave: a Christian eat grass!
Whereby you now confess yourself to be a goose or an ass:
But that’s as much as to say, that my master should die before ye;
Well, well, that’s as God pleases, and I don’t believe that’s a true story,
And so say I told you so, and you may go tell my master; what care I?
And I don’t care who knows it, ’tis all one to Mary.
Everybody knows, that I love to tell truth, and shame the devil;
I am but a poor servant, but I think gentlefolks should be civil.
Besides, you found fault with our victuals one day that you was here,
I remember it was upon a Tuesday, of all days in the year.
And Saunders the man says, you are always jesting and mocking,
‘Mary’ said he, (one day, as I was mending my master’s stocking,)
‘My master is so fond of that minister that keeps the school;
I thought my master a wise man, but that man makes him a fool.’
‘Saunders’ said I, ‘I would rather than a quart of ale,
He would come into our kitchen, and I would pin a dishclout to his tail.’
And now I must go, and get Saunders to direct this letter,
For I write but a sad scrawl, but sister Marget she writes better.
Well, but I must run and make the bed before my master comes from prayers,
And see now, it strikes ten, and I hear him coming upstairs:
Whereof I could say more to your verses, if I could write written hand,
And so I remain in a civil way, your servant to command,
MARY.
A Satirical Elegy on the Death of a Late Famous General
His Grace! impossible! what, dead!
Of old age too, and in his bed!
And could that Mighty Warrior fall?
And so inglorious, after all!
Well, since he’s gone, no matter how,
The last loud trump must wake him now:
And, trust me, as the noise grows stronger,
He’d wish to sleep a little longer.
And could he be indeed so old
As by the newspapers we’re told?
Threescore, I think, is pretty high;
’Twas time in conscience he should die.
This world he cumbered long enough;
He burnt his candle to the snuff;
And that’s the reason, some folks think,
He left behind so great a stink.
Behold his funeral appears,
Nor widow’s sighs, nor orphan’s tears,
Wont at such times each heart to pierce,
Attend the progress of his hearse.
But what of that, his friends may say,
He had those honours in his day.
True to his profit and his pride,
He made them weep before he died.
Come hither, all ye empty things,
Ye bubbles raised by breath of kings;
Who float upon the tide of state,
Come hither, and behold your fate.
Let pride be taught by this rebuke,
How very mean a thing’s a Duke;
From all his ill-got honours flung,
Turned to that dirt from whence he sprung.
Stella at Woodpark
A House of
Charles Ford Esq. Eight Miles from Dublin
Cuicunque nocere volebat
Vestimenta dabat pretiosa.
Don Carlos in a merry spite,
Did Stella to his house invite:
He entertained her half a year
With generous wines and costly cheer.
Don Carlos made her chief director,
That she might o’er the servants hector.
In half a week the dame grows nice,
Got all things at the highest price.
Now at the table-head she sits,
Presented with the nicest bits:
She looked on partridges with scorn,
Except they tasted of the corn:
A haunch of venison made her sweat,
Unless it had the right fumette.
Don Carlos earnestly would beg,
‘Dear madam, try this pigeon’s leg’;
Was happy when he could prevail
To make her only touch a quail.
Through candle-light she viewed the wine,
To see that every glass was fine.
At last grown prouder than the devil,
With feeding high, and treatment civil,
Don Carlos now began to find
His malice work as he designed:
The winter sky began to frown,
Poor Stella must pack off to town.
From purling streams and fountains bubbling,
To Liffey’s stinking tide in Dublin:
From wholesome exercise and air
To sossing in an easy chair;
From stomach sharp and hearty feeding,
To piddle like a lady breeding:
From ruling there the household singly,
To be directed here by Dingley:
From every day a lordly banquet,
To half a joint, and God be thank it:
From every meal Pontac in plenty,
To half a pint one day in twenty.
From Ford attending at her call,
To visits of Archdeacon Wall.
From Ford, who thinks of nothing mean,
To the poor doings of the Dean.
From growing richer with good cheer,
To running out by starving here.
But now arrives the dismal day:
She must return to Ormond Quay:
The coachman stopped, she looked, and swore
The rascal had mistook the door:
At coming in you saw her stoop;
The entry brushed against her hoop:
Each moment rising in her airs,
She cursed the narrow winding stairs:
Began a thousand faults to spy;
The ceiling hardly six foot high;
The smutty wainscot full of cracks,
And half the chairs with broken backs:
Her quarter’s out at Lady Day,
She vows she will no longer stay,
In lodgings, like a poor grisette,
While there are houses to be let.
Howe’er, to keep her spirits up,
She sent for company to sup;
When all the while you might remark,
She strove in vain to ape Woodpark.
Two bottles called for, (half her store;
The cupboard could contain but four;)
A supper worthy of her self,
Five nothings in five plates of Delf.
Thus, for a week the farce went on;
When all her country-savings gone,
She fell into her former scene.
Small beer, a herring, and the Dean.
Thus far in jest. Though now I fear
You think my jesting too severe:
But poets when a hint is new
Regard not whether false or true:
Yet raillery gives no offence,
Where truth has not the least pretence;
Nor can be more securely placed
Than on a nymph of Stella’s taste.
I must confess, your wine and victual
I was too hard upon a little;
Your table neat, your linen fine;
And, though in miniature, you shine.
Yet, when you sigh to leave Woodpark,
The scene, the welcome, and the spark,
To languish in this odious town,
And pull your haughty stomach down;
We think you quite mistake the case;
The virtue lies not in the place:
For though my raillery were true,
A cottage is Woodpark with you.
Verses Occasioned by the Sudden Drying Up of St Patrick’s Well near Trinity College, Dublin
By holy zeal inspired, and led by fame,
To thee, once favourite isle, with joy I came;
What time the Goth, the Vandal, and the Hun,
Had my own native Italy o’errun.
Ierne, to the world’s remotest parts,
Renowned for valour, policy and arts.
Hither from Colchus, with the fleecy ore,
Jason arrived two thousand years before.
Thee, happy island, Pallas called her own,
When haughty Britain was a land unknown.
From thee, with pride, the Caledonians trace
The glorious founder of their kingly race:
Thy martial sons, whom now they dare despise,
Did once their land subdue and civilize:
Their dress, their language, and the Scottish name,
Confess the soil from whence the victors came.
Well may they boast that ancient blood, which runs
Within their veins, who are thy younger sons,
A conquest and a colony from thee,
The mother-kingdom left her children free;
From thee no mark of slavery they felt,
Not so with thee thy base invaders dealt;
Invited here to vengeful Morough’s aid,
Those whom they could not conquer, they betrayed.
Britain, by thee we fell, ungrateful isle!
Not by thy valour, but superior guile:
Britain, with shame confess, this land of mine
First taught thee human knowledge and divine;
My prelates and my students, sent from hence,
Made your sons converts both to God and sense:
Not like the pastors of thy ravenous breed,
Who come to fleece the flocks, and not to feed.
Wretched Ierne! with what grief I see
The fatal changes time hath made in thee.
The Christian rites I introduced in vain:
Lo! Infidelity returned again.
Freedom and Virtue in thy sons I found,
Who now in Vice and Slavery are drowned.
By faith and prayer, this crozier in my hand,
I drove the venomed serpent from thy land;
The shepherd in his bower might sleep or sing,
Nor dread the adder’s tooth, nor scorpion’s sting.
With omens oft I strove to warn thy swains,
Omens, the types of thy impending chains.
I sent the magpie from the British soil,
With restless beak thy blooming fruit to spoil,
To din thine ears with unharmonious clack,
And haunt thy holy walls in white and black.
What else are those thou seest in bishop’s gear
Who crop the nurseries of learning here?
Aspiring, greedy, full of senseless prate,
Devour the church, and chatter to the state.
As you grew more degenerate and base,
I sent you millions of the croaking race;
Emblems of insects vile, who spread their spawn
Through all thy land, in armour, fur and lawn.
A nauseous brood, that fills your senate walls,
And in the chambers of your Viceroy crawls.
See, where the new-devouring vermin runs,
Sent in my anger from the land of Huns;
With harpy claws it undermin
es the ground,
And sudden spreads a numerous offspring round;
The amphibious tyrant, with his ravenous band,
Drains all thy lakes of fish, of fruits thy land.
Where is the sacred well, that bore my name?
Fled to the fountain back, from whence it came!
Fair Freedom’s emblem once, which smoothly flows,
And blessings equally on all bestows.
Here, from the neighbouring nursery of arts,
The students drinking, raised their wit and parts;
Here, for an age and more, improved their vein,
Their Phoebus I, my spring their Hippocrene.
Discouraged youths, now all their hopes must fail,
Condemned to country cottages and ale;
To foreign prelates make a slavish court,
And by their sweat procure a mean support;
Or, for the classics read the attorney’s guide;
Collect excise, or wait upon the tide.
O! had I been apostle to the Swiss,
Or hardy Scot, or any land but this;
Combined in arms, they had their foes defied,
And kept their liberty, or bravely died.
Thou still with tyrants in succession cursed,
The last invaders trampling on the first:
Nor fondly hope for some reverse of fate,
Virtue herself would now return too late.
Not half thy course of misery is run,
Thy greatest evils yet are scarce begun.
Soon shall thy sons, the time is just at hand,
Be all made captives in their native land;
When, for the use of no Hibernian born,
Shall rise one blade of grass, one ear of corn;
When shells and leather shall for money pass,
Nor thy oppressing lords afford thee brass.
But all turn leasers to that mongrel breed,
Who from thee sprung, yet on thy vitals feed;
Who to yon ravenous isle thy treasures bear,
And waste in luxury thy harvests there;
For pride and ignorance a proverb grown,
The jest of wits, and to the courts unknown.
I scorn thy spurious and degenerate line,
And from this hour my patronage resign.
from To Dr Delany, on the Libels Writ against Him
When Jove was, from his teeming head,
Of wit’s fair goddess brought to bed,
There followed at his lying-in
For afterbirth, a sooterkin;
Which, as the nurse pursued to kill,
Attained by flight the muses’ hill;
There in the soil began to root,
And littered at Parnassus’ foot.
The Penguin Book of Irish Poetry Page 26