We own your verses are melodious;
But such comparisons are odious.
[Observe the case--I state it thus:
Though you compare your trull to us,
But think how damnably you err
When you compare us clouds to her;
From whence you draw such bold conclusions;
But poets love profuse allusions.
And, if you now so little spare us,
Who knows how soon you may compare us
To Chartres, Walpole, or a king,
If once we let you have your swing.
Such wicked insolence appears
Offensive to all pious ears.
To flatter women by a metaphor!
What profit could you hope to get of her?
And, for her sake, turn base detractor
Against your greatest benefactor.
But we shall keep revenge in store
If ever you provoke us more:
For, since we know you walk a-foot,
We'll soundly drench your frieze surtout;
Or may we never thunder throw,
Nor souse to death a birth-day beau.
We own your verses are melodious;
But such comparisons are odious.]
[Footnote 1: The highest point of Howth is called the Cape of Howth.--
_F._]
[Footnote 2: The Dogstar.--Hyginus, "Astronomica."]
[Footnote 3: Who murdered his father-in-law, and was taken into heaven
and purified by Jove, but when, after he had begot the Centaurs from the
cloud, he boasted of his imaginary success with Juno, Jupiter hurled
him into Tartarus, where he was bound to a perpetually revolving wheel.
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