The Penguin Book of English Verse

by Paul Keegan

  Proud of a vast Extent of flimzy lines.

  Whom have I hurt? has Poet yet, or Peer,

  Lost the arch’d eye-brow, or Parnassian sneer?

  And has not Colly still his Lord, and Whore?

  His Butchers Henley, his Free-masons Moor?

  Does not one Table Bavius still admit?

  Still to one Bishop Philips seem a Wit?

  Still Sapho – ‘Hold! for God-sake – you’ll offend:

  No Names – be calm – learn Prudence of a Friend:

  I too could write, and I am twice as tall,

  But Foes like these!’ – One Flatt’rer’s worse than all;

  Of all mad Creatures, if the Learn’d are right,

  It is the Slaver kills, and not the Bite.

  A Fool quite angry is quite innocent;

  Alas! ’tis ten times worse when they repent.

  (… )

  Peace to all such! but were there One whose fires

  True Genius kindles, and fair Fame inspires,

  Blest with each Talent and each Art to please,

  And born to write, converse, and live with ease:

  Shou’d such a man, too fond to rule alone,

  Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne,

  View him with scornful, yet with jealous eyes,

  And hate for Arts that caus’d himself to rise;

  Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer,

  And without sneering, teach the rest to sneer;

  Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike,

  Just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike;

  Alike reserv’d to blame, or to commend,

  A tim’rous foe, and a suspicious friend,

  Dreading ev’n fools, by Flatterers besieg’d,

  And so obliging that he ne’er oblig’d;

  Like Cato, give his little Senate laws,

  And sit attentive to his own applause;

  While Wits and Templers ev’ry sentence raise,

  And wonder with a foolish face of praise.

  Who but must laugh, if such a man there be?

  Who would not weep, if Atticus were he!

  (… )

  A Lash like mine no honest man shall dread,

  But all such babling blockheads in his stead.

  Let Sporus tremble – ‘What? that Thing of silk,

  Sporus, that mere white Curd of Ass’s milk?

  Satire or Sense alas! can Sporus feel?

  Who breaks a Butterfly upon a Wheel?’

  Yet let me flap this Bug with gilded wings,

  This painted Child of Dirt that stinks and stings;

  Whose Buzz the Witty and the Fair annoys,

  Yet Wit ne’er tastes, and Beauty ne’er enjoys,

  So well-bred Spaniels civilly delight

  In mumbling of the Game they dare not bite.

  Eternal Smiles his Emptiness betray,

  As shallow streams run dimpling all the way.

  Whether in florid Impotence he speaks,

  And, as the Prompter breathes, the Puppet squeaks;

  Or at the Ear of Eve, familiar Toad,

  Half Froth, half Venom, spits himself abroad,

  In Puns, or Politicks, or Tales, or Lyes,

  Or Spite, or Smut, or Rymes, or Blasphemies.

  His Wit all see-saw between that and this,

  Now high, now low, now Master up, now Miss,

  And he himself one vile Antithesis.

  Amphibious Thing! that acting either Part,

  The trifling Head, or the corrupted Heart!

  Fop at the Toilet, Flatt’rer at the Board,

  Now trips a Lady, and now struts a Lord.

  Eve’s Tempter thus the Rabbins have exprest,

  A Cherub’s face, a Reptile all the rest;

  Beauty that shocks you, Parts that none will trust,

  Wit that can creep, and Pride that licks the dust.

  ALEXANDER POPE

  EPITAPH.

  Intended for Sir ISAAC NEWTON,

  In Westminster-Abbey.

  ISAACUS NEWTONIUS

  Quem Immortalem,

  Testantur Tempus, Natura, Cœlum:

  Mortalem

  Hoc Marmor fatetur.

  Nature, and Nature’s Laws lay hid in Night.

  God said, Let Newton be! and All was Light.

  JOHN DYER My Ox Duke

  ’Twas on a summer noon, in Stainsford mead

  New mown and tedded, while the weary swains,

  Louting beneath an oak, their toils relieved;

  And some with wanton tale the nymphs beguiled,

  And some with song, and some with kisses rude;

  Their scythes hung o’er their heads: when my brown ox,

  Old labourer Duke, in awkward haste I saw

  Run stumbling through the field to reach the shade

  Of an old open barn, whose gloomy floor

  The lash of sounding flails had long forgot.

  In vain his eager haste: sudden old Duke

  Stopped; a soft ridge of snow-white little pigs

  Along the sacred threshold sleeping lay.

  Burnt in the beam, and stung with swarming flies,

  He stood tormented on the shadow’s edge:

  What should he do? What sweet forbearance held

  His heavy foot from trampling on the weak,

  To gain his wishes? Hither, hither all,

  Ye vain, ye proud! see, humble heaven attends;

  The fly-teased brute with gentle pity stays,

  And shields the sleeping young. O gracious Lord!

  Aid of the feeble, cheerer of distress,

  In his low labyrinth each small reptile’s guide!

  God of unnumbered worlds! Almighty power!

  Assuage our pride. Be meek, thou child of man:

  Who gives thee life, gives every worm to live,

  Thy kindred of the dust. – Long waiting stood

  The good old labourer, in the burning beam,

  And breathed upon them, nosed them, touched them soft,

  With lovely fear to hurt their tender sides;

  Again soft touched them; gently moved his head

  From one to one; again, with touches soft,

  He breathed them o’er, till gruntling waked and stared

  The merry little young, their tails upcurled,

  And gambolled off with scattered flight. Then sprung

  The honest ox, rejoiced, into the shade.

  (1855)

  1737

  MATTHEW GREEN from The Spleen

  To cure the mind’s wrong biass, spleen,

  Some recommend the bowling-green;

  Some, hilly walks; all, exercise;

  Fling but a stone, the giant dies;

  Laugh and be well; monkeys have been

  Extreme good doctors for the spleen;

  And kitten, if the humour hit,

  Has harlequin’d away the fit.

  (… )

  Sometimes I dress, with women sit,

  And chat away the gloomy fit,

  Quit the stiff garb of serious sense,

  And wear a gay impertinence,

  Nor think, nor speak with any pains,

  But lay on fancy’s neck the reins;

  Talk of unusual swell of waist

  In maid of honour loosely lac’d,

  And beauty borr’wing Spanish red,

  And loving pair with sep’rate bed,

  And jewels pawn’d for loss of game,

  And then redeem’d by loss of fame,

  Of Kitty (aunt left in the lurch

  By grave pretence to go to church)

  Perceiv’d in hack with lover fine,

  Like Will and Mary on the coin:

  And thus in modish manner we

  In aid of sugar sweeten tea.

  Permit, ye fair, your idol form,

  Which e’en the coldest heart can warm,

  May with its beauties grace my line,

  While I bow down before it’s shrine,


  And your throng’d altars with my lays

  Perfume, and get by giving praise.

  With speech so sweet, so sweet a mien

  You excommunicate the spleen.

  1738

  SAMUEL JOHNSON from London: A Poem in Imitation of the Third Satire of Juvenal

  Tho’ grief and fondness in my breast rebel,

  When injur’d THALES bids the town farewell,

  Yet still my calmer thoughts his choice commend,

  I praise the hermit, but regret the friend,

  Resolved at length, from vice and LONDON far,

  To breathe in distant fields a purer air,

  And, fix’d on Cambria’s solitary shore,

  Give to St David one true Briton more.

  For who would leave, unbrib’d, Hibernia’s land,

  Or change the rocks of Scotland for the Strand?

  There none are swept by sudden fate away,

  But all whom hunger spares, with age decay:

  Here malice, rapine, accident, conspire,

  And now a rabble rages, now a fire;

  Their ambush here relentless ruffians lay,

  And here the fell attorney prowls for prey;

  Here falling houses thunder on your head,

  And here a female atheist talks you dead.

  (… )

  By numbers here from shame or censure free,

  All crimes are safe, but hated poverty.

  This, only this, the rigid law pursues,

  This, only this, provokes the snarling muse.

  The sober trader at a tatter’d cloak,

  Wakes from his dream, and labours for a joke;

  With brisker air the silken courtiers gaze,

  And turn the varied taunt a thousand ways.

  Of all the griefs that harrass the distress’d,

  Sure the most bitter is a scornful jest;

  Fate never wounds more deep the gen’rous heart,

  Than when a blockhead’s insult points the dart.

  Has heaven reserv’d, in pity to the poor,

  No pathless waste, or undiscover’d shore;

  No secret island in the boundless main?

  No peaceful desart yet unclaim’d by SPAIN?

  Quick let us rise, the happy seats explore,

  And bear oppression’s insolence no more.

  This mournful truth is ev’ry where confess’d,

  SLOW RISES WORTH, BY POVERTY DEPRESS’D:

  But here more slow, where all are slaves to gold,

  Where looks are merchandise, and smiles are sold;

  Where won by bribes, by flatteries implor’d,

  The groom retails the favours of his lord.

  ALEXANDER POPE from Epilogue to the Satires

  from Dialogue I

  Virtue may chuse the high or low Degree,

  ’Tis just alike to Virtue, and to me;

  Dwell in a Monk, or light upon a King,

  She’s still the same, belov’d, contented thing.

  Vice is undone, if she forgets her Birth,

  And stoops from Angels to the Dregs of Earth:

  But ’tis the Fall degrades her to a Whore;

  Let Greatness own her, and she’s mean no more:

  Her Birth, her Beauty, Crowds and Courts confess,

  Chaste Matrons praise her, and grave Bishops bless:

  In golden Chains the willing World she draws,

  And hers the Gospel is, and hers the Laws:

  Mounts the Tribunal, lifts her scarlet head,

  And sees pale Virtue carted in her stead!

  Lo! at the Wheels of her Triumphal Car,

  Old England’s Genius, rough with many a Scar,

  Dragg’d in the Dust! his Arms hang idly round,

  His Flag inverted trails along the ground!

  Our Youth, all liv’ry’d o’er with foreign Gold,

  Before her dance; behind her crawl the Old!

  See thronging Millions to the Pagod run,

  And offer Country, Parent, Wife, or Son!

  Hear her black Trumpet thro’ the Land proclaim,

  That ‘Not to be corrupted is the Shame.’

  In Soldier, Churchman, Patriot, Man in Pow’r,

  ’Tis Av’rice all, Ambition is no more!

  See, all our Nobles begging to be Slaves!

  See, all our Fools aspiring to be Knaves!

  The Wit of Cheats, the Courage of a Whore,

  Are what ten thousand envy and adore.

  All, all look up, with reverential Awe,

  On Crimes that scape, or triumph o’er the Law:

  While Truth, Worth, Wisdom, daily they decry –

  ‘Nothing is Sacred now but Villany.’

  ALEXANDER POPE Epitaph for One Who Would Not Be Buried in Westminster Abbey.

  Heroes, and Kings! your distance keep:

  In peace let one poor Poet sleep,

  Who never flatter’d Folks like you:

  Let Horace blush, and Virgil too.

  1739

  JONATHAN SWIFT from Verses on the Death of Dr. Swift

  The Time is not remote, when I

  Must by the Course of Nature dye:

  When I foresee my special Friends,

  Will try to find their private Ends:

  Tho’ it is hardly understood,

  Which way my Death can do them good;

  Yet, thus methinks, I hear ’em speak;

  See, how the Dean begins to break:

  Poor Gentleman, he droops apace,

  You plainly find it in his Face:

  That old Vertigo in his Head,

  Will never leave him, till he’s dead:

  Besides, his Memory decays,

  He recollects not what he says;

  He cannot call his Friends to Mind;

  Forgets the Place where last he din’d:

  Plyes you with Stories o’er and o’er,

  He told them fifty Times before.

  How does he fancy we can sit,

  To hear his out-of-fashion’d Wit?

  But he takes up with younger Fokes,

  Who for his Wine will bear his Jokes:

  Faith, he must make his Stories shorter,

  Or change his Comrades once a Quarter:

  In half the Time, he talks them round;

  There must another Sett be found.

  For Poetry, he’s past his Prime,

  He takes an Hour to find a Rhime:

  His Fire is out, his Wit decay’d,

  His Fancy sunk, his Muse a Jade.

  I’d have him throw away his Pen;