The Works of Peter Pindar [i.e. John Wolcot] :: :: University of Virginia Library

You quarrell'd with Sir Joshua some time since;
Of painters, easily allow'd the prince—
The emp'ror, let me say, without a flattery:
Yet wantonly against this emp'ror, lo!
An overflowing tub of bile to show,
You foolish planted an infernal battery.

The mind of man is vastly like a hive;
His thoughts so busy ever—all alive!
But here the simile will go no further;
For bees are making honey one and all;
Man's thoughts are busy in producing gall,
Committing, as it were, self-murther.

But let the spirit that surrounds my fram
Sit easy on it, just like an old shoe—
When Disappointment sets my house in flame,
Let Reason all she can to quench it do:
Reason has engines plentiful and stout,
With water at command to put it out.

I hate to hear men quarrelling through life,
Themselves the fabricators of the strife;
For ever hunting, with a hound-like nose,
That hornet's nest, the tribe of woes:
And when the woes invited greet 'em,
They wonder how the dev'l they meet 'em.