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AN EPISTLE TO ROBERT NUGENT, ESQ.[1]
WITH A PICTURE OF DR. SWIFT. BY WILLIAM DUNKIN, D.D.
To gratify thy long desire,
(So love and piety require,)
From Bindon's colours you may trace
The patriot's venerable face.
The last, O Nugent! which his art
Shall ever to the world impart;
For know, the prime of mortal men,
That matchless monarch of the pen,
(Whose labours, like the genial sun,
Shall through revolving ages run,
Yet never, like the sun, decline,
But in their full meridian shine,)
That ever honour'd, envied sage,
So long the wonder of the age,
Who charm'd us with his golden strain,
Is not the shadow of the Dean:
He only breathes Boeotian air--
"O! what a falling off was there!"
Hibernia's Helicon is dry,
Invention, Wit, and Humour die;
And what remains against the storm
Of Malice but an empty form?
The nodding ruins of a pile,
That stood the bulwark of this isle?
In which the sisterhood was fix'd
Of candid Honour, Truth unmix'd,
Imperial Reason, Thought profound,
And Charity, diffusing round
In cheerful rivulets to flow
Of Fortune to the sons of woe?
Such one, my Nugent, was thy Swift,
Endued with each exalted gift,
But lo! the pure ethereal flame
Is darken'd by a misty steam:
The balm exhausted breathes no smell,
The rose is wither'd ere it fell.
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