Though small's the farm, yet here's a house
Full large to entertain a mouse;
But where a rat is dreaded more
Than savage Caledonian boar;
For, if it's enter'd by a rat,
There is no room to bring a cat.
A little rivulet seems to steal
Down through a thing you call a vale,
Like tears adown a wrinkled cheek,
Like rain along a blade of leek:
And this you call your sweet meander,
Which might be suck'd up by a gander,
Could he but force his nether bill
To scoop the channel of the rill.
For sure you'd make a mighty clutter,
Were it as big as city gutter.
Next come I to your kitchen garden,
Where one poor mouse would fare but hard in;
And round this garden is a walk,
No longer than a tailor's chalk
Thus I compare what space is in it,
A snail creeps round it in a minute.
One lettuce makes a shift to squeeze
Up through a tuft you call your trees:
And, once a year, a single rose
Peeps from the bud, but never blows;
In vain then you expect its bloom!
It cannot blow for want of room.
In short, in all your boasted seat,
There's nothing but yourself that's GREAT.
A BARD, grown desirous of saving his pelf,
Built a house he was sure would hold none but
This enrag'd god Apollo, who Mercury sent,
And bid him go ask what his votary meant?
"Some foe to my empire has been his adviser:
'Tis of dreadful portent when a poet turns miser!
Tell him, Hermes, from me, tell that subject of
mine,
I have sworn by the Styx, to defeat his design;
For wherever he lives, the Muses shall reign;
And the Muses, he knows, have a numerous train."
Scripsit Jun. Ann. Dom. 1723,
ECCE ingens fragmen scopuli, quod vertice summo
Desuper, impendet, nullo fundamine nixum
Decidit in fluctus: maria undique et undique saxa
Horrisono stridore tonant, et ad æthera murmur
Erigitur; trepidatque suis Neptunus in undis.
Nam, longâ venti rabie, atque aspergine crebrâ
Æquorei laticis, specus imâ rupe cavatur :
Jam fultura ruit, jam summa cacumina nutant;
Jam cadit in præceps moles, et verberat undas.
Attonitus credas, hinc dejecisse Tonantem
Montibus impositos montes, et Pelion altum
In capita anguipedum cœlo jaculasse gigantum.
Sæpe etiam spelunca immani aperitur hiatu
Exesa è scopulis et utrinque foramina pandit,
Hinc atque hinc a ponto ad pontum pervia Phœbo.
Cautibus enormè junctis laquearia tecti
Formantur; moles olim ruitura supernè.
Fornice sublimi nidos posuere palumbes,
Inque imo stagni posuere cubilia phocæ.
Sed, cum sævit hyems, et venti, carcere rupto, Immensos volvunt fluctus ad culmina montis Non obsessæ arces, non fulmina vindice dextrâ Missa Jovis, quoties inimicas sævit in urbes, Exæquant sonitum undarum, veniente procellâ : Littora littoribus reboant; vicinia latè,
Gens assueta mari, et pedibus percurrere rupes,
Terretur tamen, et longè fugit, arva relinquens.
Gramina dum carpunt pendentes rupe capellæ,
Vi salientis aquæ de summo præcipitantur,
Et dulces animas imo sub gurgite linquunt.
Piscator terrâ non audet vellere funem ;
Sed latet in portu tremebundus, et aëre sudum
Haud sperans,
sperans, Nereum precibus votisque fatigat.
Lo! from the top of yonder cliff, that shrouds
Its airy head amid the azure clouds,
Hangs a huge fragment; destitute of props,
Prone on the wave the rocky ruin drops;
With hoarse rebuff the swelling seas rebound,
From shore to shore the rocks return the sound:
The dreadful murmur Heaven's high convex cleaves,
And Neptune shrinks beneath his subject waves:
For, long the whirling winds and beating tides
Had scoop'd a vault into its nether sides.
Now yields the base, the summits nod, now urge
Their headlong course, and lash the sounding surge.
Not louder noise could shake the guilty world,
When Jove heap'd mountains upon mountains
hurl'd;
-Retorting Pelion from his dread abode,
To crush Earth's rebel sons beneath the load.
Oft too with hideous yawn the cavern wide
Presents an orifice on either side.
A dismal orifice, from sea to sea
Extended pervious to the God of Day:
Uncouthly join'd, the rocks stupendous form
An arch, the ruin of a future storm:
High on the cliff their nests the woodquests make,
And sea-calves stable in the oozy lake.
But when bleak Winter with his sullen train Awakes the winds to vex the watery plain; When o'er the craggy steep without control, Big with the blast, the raging billows roll;
Not towns beleaguer'd, not the flaming brand,
Darted from Heaven by Jove's avenging hand,
Oft as on impious men his wrath he pours,
Humbles their pride and blasts their gilded towers,
Equal the tumult of this wild uproar:
Waves rush o'er waves, rebellows shore to shore. The neighbouring race, though wont to brave the shocks
angry seas, and run along the rocks,
Now pale with terror, while the ocean foams,
Fly far and wide, nor trust their native homes.
The goats, while pendent from the mountain top,
The wither'd herb improvident they crop,
Wash'd down the precipice with sudden sweep,
Leave their sweet lives beneath th' unfathom'd deep.
The frighted fisher, with desponding eyes,
Though safe, yet trembling in the harbour lies,
Nor hoping to behold the skies serene,
Wearies with vows the monarch of the main.
COPY OF THE BIRTH-DAY VERSES
COME, be content, since out it must,
For Stella has betray'd her trust;
* Dr Swift had been used to celebrate the birth-day of his friend Charles Ford, Esq. which was on the first day of January. See also the poem, "Stella at Wood Park."-Dr Delany men. tions also, among the Dean's intimate friends, "Matthew Ford, Esq. a man of family and fortune, a fine gentleman, and the best lay scholar of his time and nation."-N.
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