The Works of Peter Pindar [i.e. John Wolcot] ... With a Copious Index. To which is prefixed Some Account of his Life. In Four Volumes |
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 | The Works of Peter Pindar [i.e. John Wolcot] |  |
80
ODE XVI.
If monarchs (the suggestion, p'rhaps of liars)
Turn housebreakers, and rob the nuns and friars;
Steal pictures, crucifixes, heav'nly chattels,
To purchase swords and guns and souls for battles:
Turn housebreakers, and rob the nuns and friars;
Steal pictures, crucifixes, heav'nly chattels,
To purchase swords and guns and souls for battles:
In spite of all the world may say or think,
If empresses will punk-like kiss and drink:
If empresses will punk-like kiss and drink:
If kings will sell the hares and boars they kill,
And snipe and partridge blood for mammon spill,
Denying thus themselves a dainty dish,
And go themselves to market with their fish:
And snipe and partridge blood for mammon spill,
Denying thus themselves a dainty dish,
And go themselves to market with their fish:
Pleas'd with the vulgar herd to join their name,
If kings, ambitious of a blacksmith's fame,
Not wondrously ambitious in their views,
Instead of mending empires, make horse shoes:
If kings, ambitious of a blacksmith's fame,
Not wondrously ambitious in their views,
Instead of mending empires, make horse shoes:
Dead to fair science, if to vagrant hogs,
To toymen, conjurors, and dancing dogs,
Great princes, pleas'd, a patronage extend;
Whilst modest genius pines without a friend:
To toymen, conjurors, and dancing dogs,
Great princes, pleas'd, a patronage extend;
Whilst modest genius pines without a friend:
Dismissing grandeur as an idle thing,
If on bob wigs, slouch'd hats, and thread-bare coats,
Upon vulgarity a monarch doats,
More pleas'd to look a coachman than a king:
If on bob wigs, slouch'd hats, and thread-bare coats,
Upon vulgarity a monarch doats,
More pleas'd to look a coachman than a king:
If with their bullocks kings delight to battle:
On hard horse chesnuts make them dine and sup,
Resolv'd to starve the nice-mouth'd cattle
Until they eat the chesnuts up;
Poor fellows, from the nuts who turn away,
And think it dev'lish hard they can't have hay:
On hard horse chesnuts make them dine and sup,
Resolv'd to starve the nice-mouth'd cattle
Until they eat the chesnuts up;
Poor fellows, from the nuts who turn away,
And think it dev'lish hard they can't have hay:
If kings will mount old houses upon rollers,
Converting sober mansions into strollers,
Heraclitus's gravity can't bear it—
I must laugh out, and all the world must hear it.
Converting sober mansions into strollers,
Heraclitus's gravity can't bear it—
I must laugh out, and all the world must hear it.
| The Works of Peter Pindar [i.e. John Wolcot] | |