With grief I felt his admonition,
And much lamented my condition:
Because I could not be content
Without some grateful compliment,
If not the poet, sure the friend
Must something on your birth-day send.
I scratch'd, and rubb'd my head once more:
"Let every patriot him adore."
Alack-a-day, there's nothing in't--
Such stuff will never do in print.
Pray, reader, ponder well the sequel;
I hope this epigram will take well.
In others, life is deem'd a vapour,
In Swift it is a lasting taper,
Whose blaze continually refines,
The more it burns the more it shines.
I read this epigram again,
'Tis much too flat to fit the Dean.
Then down I lay some scheme to dream on
Assisted by some friendly demon.
I slept, and dream'd that I should meet
A birth-day poem in the street;
So, after all my care and rout,
You see, dear Dean, my dream is out.
EPIGRAMS
OCCASIONED BY DR. SWIFT'S INTENDED HOSPITAL
FOR IDIOTS AND LUNATICS
I
The Dean must die--our idiots to maintain!
Perish, ye idiots! and long live the Dean!
II
O Genius of Hibernia's state,
Sublimely good, severely great,
How doth this latest act excel
All you have done or wrote so well!
Satire may be the child of spite,
And fame might bid the Drapier write:
But to relieve, and to endow,
Creatures that know not whence or how
Argues a soul both good and wise,
Resembling Him who rules the skies,
He to the thoughtful mind displays
Immortal skill ten thousand ways;
And, to complete his glorious task,
Gives what we have not sense to ask!
III
Lo! Swift to idiots bequeaths his store:
Be wise, ye rich!--consider thus the poor!
IV
Great wits to madness nearly are allied,
This makes the Dean for kindred _thus_ provide.
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