University of Virginia Library

A PORTRAIT.

In the manner of Swift.

A vacant visage, bursting red;
A paralitic shake of head:
A paunch, brimful of various meats;
Impregnate with intestine heats,
Of bak'd and boil'd, all helter skelter,
Sore driv'n by stress of wind and weather.
A double range of yellow bone,
Where fat of oxen chew'd, goes down,
Even till it swims in that red sea
Y'Clpt the gulp of gluttony;
A hoarse, harsh voice, whose lightest sounds,
Seems from some cavern under ground,
A capon's gill, a collop'd chin,
With flesh that swells the tighten'd skin;
Bowels, which look a rood about,
As ripe to split and wamble out;
An atlas back of human brawn;
A mouth into a swines-snout drawn;
An eye that fixes in its socket
Faster than binding bars could lock it;
A squabby neck, a roomy chest;
A more than mountains monstrous breast;
Sinews—oh Herculus like thine!
God keep them from this frame of mine!
A thigh, of column'd dome the type,
A fist—save, save me from its gripe!
A wig that veils the shaven scull!
A wig of one vast Nothing full;
A bottom—Heav'n our chairs befriend!
Be ours, unlike—his latter end.