Prev | Current Page 297 | Next

Swift, Jonathan, 1667-1745

"The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume 2"


Were but you and I acquainted,
Every monster should be painted:
You should try your graving tools
On this odious group of fools;
Draw the beasts as I describe them:
Form their features while I gibe them;
Draw them like; for I assure you,
You will need no _car'catura;_
Draw them so that we may trace
All the soul in every face.
Keeper, I must now retire,
You have done what I desire:
But I feel my spirits spent
With the noise, the sight, the scent.
"Pray, be patient; you shall find
Half the best are still behind!
You have hardly seen a score;
I can show two hundred more."
Keeper, I have seen enough.
Taking then a pinch of snuff,
I concluded, looking round them,
"May their god, the devil, confound them!"[23]

[Footnote 1: St. Andrew's Church, close to the site of the Parliament
House.]
[Footnote 2: On a scrap of paper, containing the memorials respecting the
Dean's family, there occur the following lines, apparently the rough
draught of the passage in the text:
"Making good that proverb odd,
Near the church and far from God,
Against the church direct is placed,
Like it both in head and waist."--_Scott_.]
[Footnote 3: From the answer of the demoniac that the devils which
possessed him were Legion.


Pages:
285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309