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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, Listen 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."
* Sister to Sir William Temple.-S. Lady Gifford, a woman of great spirit and talents, who accompanied her brother on all his embassies. Swift afterwards quarrelled with her irreconcileably, as appears from many passages in his Journal.
You that would grief describe, come here and
Its wat'ry footsteps in Dorinda's face:
Grief from Dorinda's face does ne'er depart Further than its own palace in her heart: Ah, since our fears are fled, this insolent expel, At least confine the tyrant to his cell.
And if so black the cloud, that Heaven's bright queen
Shrouds her still beams; how should the stars be seen?
Thus when Dorinda wept, joy ev'ry face forsook, And grief flung sables on each menial look; The humble tribe mourn'd for the quick'ning soul, That furnish'd spirit and motion through the whole; So would earth's face turn pale, and life decay, Should Heaven suspend to act but for a day; So nature's crazed convulsions make us dread That time is sick, or the world's mind is dead.- Take, youth, these thoughts, large matter to employ The fancy furnish'd by returning joy; And to mistaken man these truths rehearse, Who dare revile the integrity of verse: Ah fav'rite youth, how happy is thy lot! But I'm deceiv'd, or thou regard'st me not; Speak, for I wait thy answer, and expect Thy just submission for this bold neglect. Unknown the forms we the high-priesthood use At the divine appearance of the muse, Which to divulge might shake profane belief, And tell the irreligion of my grief;
*Lady Temple, who is described as a very extraordinary and accomplished woman.
Grief that excused the tribute of my knees, And shaped my passion in such words as these. Malignant goddess! bane to my repose, Thou universal cause of all my woes; Say whence it comes that thou art grown of late A poor amusement for my scorn and hate; The malice thou inspir'st I never fail On thee to wreak the tribute when I rail; Fool's commonplace thou art, their weak enscon- cing fort,
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Th' appeal of dulness in the last resort: Heaven with a parent's eye regarding earth, Deals out to man the planet of his birth : But sees thy meteor blaze about me shine, And passing o'er, mistakes thee still for mine: Ah, should I tell a secret yet unknown, That thou ne'er hadst a being of thy own, But a wild form dependent on the brain, Scatt'ring loose features o'er the optic vein; Troubling the crystal fountain of the sight, Which darts on poet's eyes a trembling light; Kindled while reason sleeps, but quickly flies, Like antic shapes in dreams, from waking eyes: In sum, a glitt'ring voice, a painted name, A walking vapour, like thy sister fame.
But if thou be'st what thy mad vot'ries praté, A female pow'r, loose govern'd thoughts create; Why near the dregs of youth perversely wilt thou
So highly courted by the brisk and gay ?
Wert thou right woman, thou shouldst scorn to look
an abandon'd wretch by hopes forsook; Forsook by hopes, ill fortune's last relief, Assign'd for life to unremitting grief;
For, let Heaven's wrath enlarge these weary days, If hope e'er dawns the smallest of its rays. Time o'er the happy takes so swift a flight, And treads so soft, so easy, and so light, That we the wretched, creeping far behind, Can scarce th' impression of his footsteps find; Smooth as that airy nymph so subtly born With inoffensive feet o'er standing corn; Which bow'd by ev'ning breeze with bending stalks, Salutes the weary trav'ller as he walks ; But o'er the afflicted with a heavy pace Sweeps the broad scythe, and tramples on his face. Down falls the summer's pride, and sadly shows Nature's bare visage furrow'd as he mows: See, Muse, what havoc in these looks appear, These are the tyrant's trophies of a year; Since hope his last and greatest foe is fled, Despair and he lodge ever in its stead; March o'er the ruin'd plain with motion slow, Still scatt'ring desolation where they go. To thee I owe that fatal bent of mind, Still to unhappy restless thoughts inclin'd; To thee, what oft I vainly strive to hide, That scorn of fools, by fools mistook for pride; From thee whatever virtue takes its rise, Grows a misfortune, or becomes a vice; Such were thy rules to be poetically great, Stoop not to int'rest, flattery, or deceit ;
Nor with hired thoughts be thy devotion paid; Learn to disdain their mercenary aid;
* What a miserable state of mind must Swift have been in when he wrote this! which was owing to the state of dependence in which he had always lived from his birth to that time, with but little prospect of his being relieved from it. How grating must this have been to such a proud and generous spirit!-S.
Be this thy sure defence, thy brazen wall, " Know no base action, at no guilt turn pale; And since unhappy distance thus denies T'expose thy soul, clad in this poor disguise; Since thy few ill-presented graces seem
To breed contempt where thou hast hoped esteem.".
Madness like this no fancy ever seized,
Still to be cheated, never to be pleased; Since one false beam of joy in sickly minds Is all the poor content delusion finds.-
There thy enchantment broke, and from this hour I here renounce thy visionary pow'r; And since thy essence on my breath depends, Thus with a puff the whole delusion ends.
WRITTEN IN A LADY'S IVORY TABLEBOOK, 1698.
[This is the first of Swift's poems which displays his strong and peculiar vein of humour. His genius seems to have thrown off its encumbrances, and assumed proper and legitimate exercise, so soon as he was released from his slavish dependence upon Temple.]
PERUSE my leaves through every part, And think thou seest my owner's heart, Scrawl'd o'er with trifles thus, and quite As hard, as senseless, and as light;
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