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Thus are the lives of fools a sort of dreams,
Rend'ring shades, things, and substances of names;
Such high companions may delusion keep,
Lords are a footboy's cronies in his sleep.
As a fresh miss, by fancy, face, and gown,
Render'd the topping beauty of the town,
Draws ev'ry rhyming, prating, dressing sot,
To boast of favours that he never got;

Of which, whoe'er lacks confidence to prate,
Brings his good parts and breeding in debate;
And not the meanest coxcomb you can find,
But thanks his stars, that Phillis has been kind;
Thus prostitute my Congreve's name is grown
To ev'ry lewd pretender of the town.
Troth I could pity you; but this is it,
You find, to be the fashionable wit ;
These are the slaves whom reputation chains,
Whose maintenance requires no help from brains.
For, should the vilest scribbler to the pit,
Whom sin and want e'er furnish'd out a wit;
Whose name must not within my lines be shown,
Lest here it live, when perish'd with his own *;
Should such a wretch usurp my Congreve's place,
And choose out wits who ne'er have seen his face;
I'll be my life but the dull cheat would pass,
Nor need the lion's skin conceal the ass;
Yes, that beau's look, that vice, those critick ears,
Must needs be right, so well resembling theirs.

* To this resolution Swift ever after adhered; for of the infinite multitude of libellers who personally attacked him, there is not the name mentioned of any one of them throughout his works; and thus, together with their writings, have they been consigned to eternal oblivion.

Perish

Perish the Muse's hour, thus vainly spent In satire, to my Congreve's praises meant ; In how ill season her resentments rule, What's that to her if mankind be a fool? Happy beyond a private muse's fate,

In pleasing all that's good among the great *,
Where though her elder sisters crowding throng,
She still is welcome with her inn'cent song;
Whom were my Congreve blest to see and know,
What poor regards would merit all below!
How proudly would he haste the joy to meet,
And drop his laurel at Apollo's feet.

Here by a mountain's side, a reverend cave
Gives murmuring passage to a lasting wave;
'Tis the world's wat'ry hourglass streaming fast,
Time is no more when th' utmost drop is past;
Here, on a better day, some druid dwelt,
And the young Muse's early favour felt;
Druid, a name she does with pride repeat,
Confessing Albion once her darling seat;
Far in this primitive cell might we pursue
Our predecessors footsteps, still in view;
Here would we sing-But, ah! you think I dream,
And the bad world may well believe the same;
Yes; you are all malicious standers by,

While two fond lovers prate, the Muse, and I.
Since thus I wander from my first intent,
Nor am that grave adviser which I meant ;
Take this short lesson from the god of bays,
And let my friend apply it as he please:

Beat not the dirty paths where vulgar feet have trod,
But give the vigorous fancy room.

* This alludes to sir William Temple, to whom he gives the name of Apollo in a few lines after.

For

For when like stupid alchymists you try
To fix this nimble god,

This volatile mercury,

The subtil spirit all flies up in fume;

Nor shall the bubbled virtuoso find

More than a fade insipid mixture left behind *.

While thus I write, vast shoals of criticks come,
And on my verse pronounce their saucy doom;
The Muse, like some bright country virgin, shows,
Fall'n by mishap among a knot of beaux ;
They, in their lewd and fashionable prate,
Rally her dress, her language, and her gait;
Spend their base coin before the bashful maid,
Current like copper, and as often paid:
She, who on shady banks has joy'd to sleep
Near better animals, her father's sheep;

Shamed and amazed, beholds the chatt'ring throng,
To think what cattle she has got among;
But with the odious smell and sight annoy'd,
In haste she does th' offensive herd avoid†.
'Tis time to bid my friend a long farewell,
The Muse retreats far in yon crystal cell;
Faint inspiration sickens as she flies,
Like distant echo spent, the spirit dies.

In this descending sheet you'll haply find
Some short refreshment for your weary mind,
Nought it contains is common or unclean,
And once drawn up, is ne'er let down again.

Out of an Ode I writ, inscribed The Poet. The rest of it is lost. + Would not one imagine that Swift had at this time already conceived his idea of the Yahoos ?

OCCASIONED

OCCASIONED BY SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE'S LATE ILLNESS AND RECOVERY.

WRITTEN IN DECEMBER 1693.

STRANGE to conceive, how the same objects

strike

At distant hours the mind with forms so like!
Whether in time, Deduction's broken chain
Meets, and salutes her sister link again;
Or hunted Fancy, by a circling flight,
Comes back with joy to its own seat at night;
Or whether dead Imagination's ghost
Oft hovers where alive it haunted most;
Or if Thought's rolling globe, her circle run,
Turns up old objects to the soul her sun ;
Or loves the muse to walk with conscious pride
O'er the glad scene whence first she rose a bride :

Be what it will; late near yon whisp'ring stream,
Where her own Temple was her darling theme;
There first the visionary sound was heard,
When to poetick view the Muse appear'd.
Such seem'd her eyes, as when an evening ray
Gives glad farewell to a tempestuous day;
Weak is the beam to dry up nature's tears,
Still ev'ry tree the pendent sorrow wears;
Such are the smiles where drops of crystal show
Approaching joy at strife with parting woe.

As when to scare th' ungrateful or the proud Tempests long frown, and thunder threatens loud,

Till the blest sun to give kind dawn of grace
Darts weeping beams across Heaven's wat'ry face;
When soon the peaceful bow unstring'd is shown,
A sign God's dart is shot, and wrath o'erblown ;
Such to unhallowed sight the Muse divine
Might seem, when first she rais'd her eyes to mine.
What mortal change does in thy face appear,
Lost youth, she cried, since first I met thee here!
With how undecent clouds are overcast

Thy looks, when every cause of grief is past!
Unworthy the glad tidings which I bring,
Listn while the muse thus teaches thee to sing:
As parent earth, burst by imprison'd winds,
Scatters strange agues o'er men's sickly minds,
And shakes the atheist's knees; such ghastly fear
Late I beheld on every face appear;
Mild Dorothea*, peaceful, wise, and great,
Trembling beheld the doubtful hand of fate;
Mild Dorothea, whom we both have long
Not dared to injure with our lowly song;
Sprung from a better world, and chosen then
The best companion for the best of men:
As some fair pile, yet spared by zeal and rage,
Lives pious witness of a better age;

So men may see what once was womankind,
In the fair shrine of Dorothea's mind.

You that would grief describe, come here and trace

Its wat'ry footsteps in Dorinda's face;

Grief from Dorinda's face does ne'er depart
Farther than its own palace in her heart:
Ah, since our fears are fled, this insolent expel,
At least confine the tyrant to his cell.

Sister to sir William Temple,

And

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