Then I clash, and roar, and rattle,
Join in all the din of battle.

Jove, with all his loudest thunder,

When I'm vext, can't keep me under; Yet so tender is my ear,

That the lowest voice I fear.

Much I dread the courtier's fate,
When his merit 's out of date
For I hate a silent breath,
And a whisper is my death.

XVIII. ON TIMË.

EVER eating, never cloying,

All devouring, all destroying,
Never finding full repast,
Till I eat the world at last.

XVI. ON A SHADOW IN A GLASS.

By something form'd, I nothing am,
Yet every thing that you can name
In no place have I ever been,
Yet every where I may be seen;
In all things false, yet always true,
I'm still the same--but ever new.
Lifeless, life's perfect form I wear,
Can show a nose, eye, tongue, or ear,
Yet neither smell, see, taste, or hear.
All shapes and features I can boast,
No flesh, no bones, no blood-no ghost;
All colours, without paint, put on,
And change like the cameleon.
Swiftly I come, and enter there,
Where not a chink lets in the air;

Like thought, I'm in a moment gone,
Nor can I ever be alone;

All things on Earth I imitate,
Faster than Nature can create ;
Sometimes imperial robes I wear,
Anon in beggar's rags appear;
A giant now, and straight an elf,
I'm every one, but ne'er myself;
Ne'er sad I mourn, ne'er glad rejoice
I move my lips, but want a voice;
I ne'er was born, nor e'er can die;
Then prythee tell me what am I.

XVII.

Most things by me do rise and fall,
And as I please they 're great and small;
Invading foes, without resistance,

With ease I make to keep their distance;
Again, as I'm dispos'd, the foe
Will come, though not a foot they go.
Both monntains, woods, and hills, and rocks,
And gaming goats, and fleecy flocks,
And lowing herds, and piping swains,
Come dancing to me o'er the plains.
The greatest whale that swims the sea
Does instantly my power obey.
In vain from me the sailor flies;
The quickest ship I can surprise,
And turn it as I have a mind,
And move it against tide and wind.
Nay, bring me here the tallest man,
I'll squeeze him to a little span ;
Or bring a tender child and pliant,
You'll see me stretch him to a giant
Nor shall they in the least complain,
Because my magic gives no pain,

XIX. ON THE GALLOWS:

THERE is a gate, we know full well,
That stands 'twixt Heaven, and Earth, and Hell,
Where many for a passage venture,
Yet very few are fond to enter;
Although 'tis open night and day,
They for that reason shun this way:
Both dukes and lords abhor its wood,
They can't come near it for their blood.
What other way they take to go,
Another time I'll let you know.
Yet commoners with greatest ease
Can find an entrance when they please.
The poorest hither march in state
(Or they can never pass the gate),
Like Roman generals triumphant,
And then they take a turn and jump on 'ts
If gravest parsons here advance,
They cannot pass before they dance;
There's not a soul that does resort here,
But strips himself to pay the porter.

XX. ON THE VOWELS

WE are little airy creatures,
All of different voice and features:
One of us in glass is set,
One of us you'll find in jet,
T' other you may see in tin,
And the fourth a box within;
If the fifth you should pursue,
It can never fly from you.

XXI. ON SNOW.

FROM Heaven I fall, though from Earth I begin! No lady alive can show such a skin.

I'm bright as an angel, and light as a feather;
But heavy and dark, when you squeeze me together.
Though candour and truth in my aspect I bear,
Yet many poor creatures I help to ensnare.
Though so much of Heaven appears in my make,
The foulest impressions I easily take.

My parent and I produce one another,
The mother the daughter, the daughter the mother

XXII. ON A CANNON.

BEGOTTEN, and born, and dying with noise,
The terrour of women, and pleasure of boys,
Like the fiction of poets concerning the wind,
I'm chiefly unruly when strongest confin'd.
For silver and gold I don't trouble my head,
But all I delight in is pieces of lead;
Except when I trade with a ship or a town,
Why then I make pieces of iron go down.

One property more I would have you remark,
No lady was ever more fond of a spark;
The moment I get one, my soul 's all a-fire
And I roar out my joy, and in transport expire.

XXIII. ON A PAIR OF DICE.

WE are little brethren twain,
Arbiters of loss and gain;
Many to our counters run,
Some are made, and some undone :
But men find it to their cost,
Few are made, but numbers lost.
Though we play them tricks for ever,
Yet they always hope our favour.

XXIV. ON A CANDLE

TO LADY CARTERET.

Of all inhabitants on Earth,
To man alone I owe my birth;
And yet the cow, the sheep, the bee,
Are all my parents more than he.
I, a virtue strange and rare,
Make the fairest look more fair;
And myself, which yet is rarer,
Growing old, grow still the fairer.
Like sots, alone I'm dull enough,

When dos'd with smoke, and smear'd with snuff;

But, in the midst of mirth and wine,

I with double lustre shine.

Emblem of the fair am I,

Polish'd neck, and radiant eye;
In my eye my greatest grace,
Emblem of the Cyclops' race;
Metals I like them subdue,
Slave like them to Vulcan too.
Emblem of a monarch old,
Wise, and glorious to behold;
Wasted he appears, and pale,
Watching for the public weal:
Emblem of the bashful dame,
That in secret feeds her flame,
Often aiding to impart
All the secrets of her heart.
Various is my bulk and hue;
Big like Bess, and small like Sue;
Now brown and burnish'd as a nut,
At other times a very slut ;
Often fair, and soft, and tender,
Taper, tall, and smooth, and slender;
Like Flora deck'd with various flowers;
Like Phœbus, guardian of the hours:
But, whatever be my dress,
Greater be my size or less,
Swelling be my shape or small,
Like thyself I shine in all.
Clouded if my face is seen,
My complexion wan and green,
Languid like a love-sick maid,
Steel affords me present aid.
Soon or late, my date is done,
As my thread of life is spun ;
Yet to cut the fatal thread
Oft revives my drooping head:

I REACH all things near me, and far off to boot,
Without stretching a finger, or stirring a foot;
I take them all in too, to add to your wonder,
Though many and various, and large and asunder.
Without jostling or crowding they pass side by side,
Through a wonderful wicket, not half an inch wide:
Then I lodge them at ease in a very large store,
Of no breadth or length, with a thousand things more.
All this I can do without witchcraft or charm;
Though sometimes, they say, I bewitch and do harm.
Though cold, I inflame; and though quiet, invade;
And nothing can shield from my spell but a shade.
A thief that has robb'd you, or done you disgrace,
In magical mirror I'll show you his face :
Nay, if you 'll believe what the poets have said,
They'll tell you I kill, and can call back the dead.
Like conjurers safe in my circle I dwell;

I love to look black too, it heightens my spell.
Though my magic is mighty in every hue,
Who see all my power must see it in You.

ANSWERED BY DR. SWIFT.

WITH half an eye your riddle I spy.

I observe your wicket hemm'd in by a thicket,
And whatever passes is strained through glasses,
You say it is quiet: I flatly deny it.

It wanders about, without stirring out;
No passion so weak but gives it a tweak;
Love, joy, and devotion, set it always in motion.
And as for the tragic effects of its magic,
Which you say it can kill or revive at its will,
The dead are all sound, and revive above ground.
After all you have writ, it cannot be wit;
Which plainly does follow, since it flies from Apollo.
Its cowardice such, it cries at a touch:
'Tis a perfect milksop, grows drunk with a drop.
Another great fault, it cannot bear salt:
And a hair can disarm it of every charm.

The famish'd cow her want supplies:
Without an ounce of last year's flesh,
Whate'er she gains is young and fresh;
Grows plump and round, and full of mettle,
As rising from Medea's kettle,
With youth and beauty to enchant
Europa's counterfeit gallant.

Why, Stella, should you knit your brow,
If I compare you to the cow?
'Tis just the case; for you have fasted
So long, till all your flesh is wasted,
And must against the warmer days
Be sent to Quilca down to graze;
Where mirth, and exercise, and air,
Will soon your appetite repair:
The nutriment will from within,
Round all your body, plump your skin;
Will agitate the lazy flood,

And fill your veins with sprightly blood:
Nor flesh nor blood will be the same,
Nor aught of Stella but the name;
For what was ever understood,
By human kind, but flesh and blood?
And if your flesh and blood be new,
You'll be no more the former you ;
But for a blooming nymph will pass,
Just fifteen, coming summer's grass,
Your jetty locks with garlands crown'd:
While all the 'squires for nine miles round,
Attended by a brace of curs,

With jocky boots and silver spurs,
No less than justices o'quorum,

Their cow-boys bearing cloaks before 'em,
Shall leave deciding broken pates,
To kiss your steps at Quilca gates.
But, lest you should my skill disgrace,
Come back before your 're out of case:
For if to Michaelmas you stay,
The new-born flesh will melt away;
The 'squire in scorn will fly the house
For better game, and look for grouse;
But here, before the frost can mar it,
We'll make it firm with beef and claret.

STELLA'S BIRTH-DAY. 1724-5.

As, when a beauteous nymph decays,
We say, she's past her dancing-days;
So poets lose their feet by time,
And can no longer dance in rhyme.
Your annual bard had rather chose
To celebrate your birth in prose:
Yet merry folks, who want by chance
A pair to make a country-dance,
Call the old house-keeper, and get her
To fill a place, for want of better:
While Sheridan is off the hooks,
And friend Delany at his books,
That Stella may avoid disgrace,
Once more the dean supplies their place.
Beauty and wit, too sad a truth!
Have always been confin'd to youth;

The god of wit, and beauty's queen,'
He twenty-one, and she fifteen.
No poet ever sweetly sung,

Unless he were, like Phoebus, young;
Nor ever nymph inspir'd to rhyme,
Unless, like Venus in her prime.
At fifty-six, if this be true,
Am I a poet fit for you?
Or, at the age of forty-three,
Are you a subject fit for me?
Adieu! bright wit, and radiant eyes
You must be grave, and I be wise.
Our fate in vain we would oppose :
But I'll be still your friend in prose:
Esteem and friendship to express,
Will not require poetic dress;
And, if the Muse deny her aid

To have them sung, they may be said.
But, Stella, say, what evil tongue
Reports you are no longer young;
That Time sits, with his scythe, to mow
Where erst sat Cupid with his bow;
That half your locks are turn'd to grey?
I'll ne'er believe a word they say.
'Tis true, but let it not be known,
My eyes are somewhat dimmish grown:
For Nature, always in the right,
To your decays adapts my sight;
And wrinkles undistinguish'd pass,
For I'm asham'd to use a glass;
And till I see them with these eyes,
Whoever says you have them, lies.

No length of time can make you quit
Honour and virtue, sense and wit:
Thus you may still be young to me,
While I can better hear than see.
Oh ne'er may Fortune show her spight,
To make me deaf, and mend my sight!

Ten thousand cymbals now begin
To rend the skies with brazen din;
The cymbals' rattling sounds dispel
The cloud, and drive the hag to Hell.
The Moon, deliver'd from her pain,
Displays her silver face again
(Note here, that in the chemic style,
The Moon is silver all this while).

So (if my simile you minded,
Which I confess is too long-winded)
When late a feminine magician 1,
Join'd with a brazen politician,
Expos'd, to blind the nation's eyes,
A parchment of prodigious size;
Conceal'd behind that ample screen,
There was no silver to be seen.
But to this parchment let the Drapier
Oppose his counter-charm of paper,
And ring Wood's copper in our ears
So loud till all the nation hears;

That sound will make the parchment shrivel,
And drive the conjurers to the devil:

And, when the sky is grown serene,
Our silver will appear again.

By long observation I have understood,
That two little vermin are kin to Will Wood,
The first is an insect they call a wood-louse,
That folds up itself in itself for a house,
As round as a ball, without head, without tail,
Enclos'd cap-a-pe in a strong coat of mail.
And thus William Wood to my fancy appears
In fillets of brass roll'd up to his ears:
And over these fillets he wisely has thrown,
To keep out of danger, a doublet of stone 3.
The louse of the wood for a med'cine is us'd,
Or swallow'd alive, or skilfully bruis'd.
And, let but our mother Hibernia contrive
To swallow Will Wood either bruis'd or alive,
She need be no more with the jaundice possest,
Or sick of obstructions, and pains in her chest.

The next is an insect we call a wood-worm,
That lies in old wood like a hare in her form!
With teeth or with claws it will bite or will scratch;
And chambermaids christen this worm a dead watch,
Because like a watch it always cries click:
Then woe be to those in the house who are sick;
For, as sure as a gun, they will give up the ghost,
If the maggot cries click when it scratches the post.
But a kettle of scalding hot water injected
Infallibly cures the timber affected:

The omen is broken, the danger is over;
The maggot will die, and the sick will recover.
Such a worm was Will Wood, when he scratch'd at
the door

Of a governing statesman or favourite whore :
The death of our nation he seem'd to foretell,
And the sound of his brass we took for our knell.
But now, since the Drapier hath heartily maul'd him,
I think the best thing we can do is to scald him.

1 A great lady was said to have been bribed by Wood.

2 The patent for coining half-pence.

3 He was in gaol for debt.

For which operation there's nothing more proper
Than the liquor he deals in, his own melted copper;
Unless, like the Dutch, you rather would boil
This coiner of raps in a cauldron of oil.
4
[faggot,
Then chuse which you please, and let each bring a
For our fear's at an end with the death of the maggot.

ON WOOD THE IRON-MONGER, 1725.
SALMONEUS, as the Grecian tale is,
Was a mad copper-smith of Elis;
Up at his forge by morning-peep,
No creature in the lane could sleep;
Among a crew of roystering fellows
Would sit whole evenings at the alehouse:
His wife and children wanted bread,
While he went always drunk to bed.
This vapouring scab must needs devise
To ape the thunder of the skies:
With brass two fiery steeds he shod,
To make a clattering as they trod
Of polish'd brass his flaming car
Like lightning dazzled from afar;
And up he mounts into the box,
And he must thunder, with a pox,
Then furious he begins his march,
Drives rattling o'er a brazen arch;
With squibs and crackers arm'd, to throw
Among the trembling crowd below.
All ran to prayers, both priests and laity,
To pacify this angry deity:

When Jove, in pity to the town,
With real thunder knock'd him down.
Then what a huge delight were all in,
To see the wicked varlet sprawling ;
They search'd his pockets on the place,
And found his copper all was base;
They laugh'd at such an Irish blunder,
To take the noise of brass for thunder.
The moral of this tale is proper,.
Apply'd to Wood's adulter'd copper;
Which, as he scatter'd, we like dolts,
Mistook at first for thunder-bolts;
Before the Drapier shot a letter,
(Nor Jove himself could do it better)
Which, lighting on th' impostor's crown,
Like real thunder knock'd him down.

WILL WOOD'S PETITION

TO THE PEOPLE OF IRELAND;

BEING AN EXCELLENT NEW SONG, SUPPOSED TO BE MADE, AND SUNG IN THE STREETS OF DUBLIN, BY WILLIAM WOOD, IRON-MONGER AND HALFPENNY

MONGER. 1725.

My dear Irish folks,
Come leave off your jokes,

And buy up my half-pence so fine;
So fair and so bright,
They'll give you delight;
Observe how they glisten and shine!

4 Counterfeit half-pence.

They'll sell, to my grief,

As cheap as neck beef,

For counters at cards to your wife; And every day

Your children may play
Span-farthing, or toss on the knife.
Come hither, and try;
I'll teach you to buy

A pot of good ale for a farthing:
Come; three-pence a score,

I ask you no more,

And a fig for the Drapier and Hardinge 1. When tradesmen have gold,

The thief will be bold,

By night and by day for to rob him:
My copper is such,

No robber will touch,

And so you may daintily bob him.

The little blackguard,
Who gets very hard

His half-pence for cleaning your shoes;
When his pockets are cramm'd
With mine and be d-'d,

He may swear he has nothing to lose.

Here's half pence in plenty,
For one you'll have twenty,
Though thousands are not worth a pudden:
Your neighbours will think,
When your pocket cries chink,
You are grown plaguy rich on a sudden.

You will be my thankers,
I'll make you my bankers,
As good as Ben Burton or Fade 2:
For nothing shall pass
But my pretty brass,
And then you'll be all of a trade.
I'm a son of a whore

If I have a word more

To say in this wretched condition.
If my coin will not pass,
I must die like an ass;
And so I conclude my petition.

The soldier is ruin'd, poor man! by his pay; His five-pence will prove but a farthing a day, For meat, or for drink; or he must run away.

Which, &c.

When he pulls out his two-pence, the tapster says not, That ten times as much he must pay for his shot; And thus the poor soldier must soon go to pot.

Which, &c.

If he goes to the baker, the baker will huff,
And twenty-pence have for a two-penny loaf,
Then, dog, rogue, and rascal, and so kick and cuff.
Which, &c.

Again, to the market whenever he goes,
The butcher and soldier must be mortal foes;
One cuts off an ear, and the other a nose.
Which, &c

The butcher is stout, and he values no swagger;
A cleaver 's a match any time for a dagger,
And a blue sleeve may give such a cuff as may stagger.
Which, &c.

The beggars themselves will be broke in a trice,
When thus their poor farthings are sunk in their price;
When nothing is left, they must live on their lice.
Which, &c.

The squire possess'd of twelve thousand a year,
O lord! what a mountain his rents would appear!
Should he take them, he would not have house room, I
fear.
Which, &c.

Though at present he lives in a very large house,
There would then not be room in it left for a mouse;
But the squire 's too wise, he will not take a souse.
Which, &c.

The farmer, who comes with his rent in this cash,
For taking these counters, and being so rash,
Will be kick'd out of doors, both himsif and his trash,
Which, &c.

For, in all the leases that ever we hold,
We must pay our rent in good silver and gold,
And not in brass tokens of such a base mould.

Which, &c. The wisest of lawyers all swear, they will warrant No money but silver and gold can be current: [on't. And, since they will swear it, we all may be sure Which, &c.

And I think, after all, it would be very strange
To give current money for base in exchange,
Like a fine lady swapping her moles for the mange.
Which, &c.

But read the king's patent, and there you will find,
That no man need take them but who has a mind,
For which we must say that his majesty's kind.

Which, &c.

Now God bless the Drapier who open'd our eyes!
I'm sure, by his book, that the writer is wise;
He shows us the cheat from the end to the rise.
Which, &&

Nay, farther he shows it a very hard case,
That this fellow Wood, of a very bad race,
Should of all the fine gentry of Ireland take place.
Which, &c.

That he and his half-pence should come to weigh
Our subjects so loyal and true to the crown; [down
But I hope, after all, that they will be his own.
Which, ka