The poetical works of Sir Alexander Boswell :: :: University of Virginia Library

What! bid a man sing,
In so dreadful a ring,
'Midst priests, for the sacrifice seated;
Æneas, they tell,
Promenaded to Hell,
But his courage would here be defeated.

II

In awe most profound,
My eye wanders round,
And phantoms rise glaring to fancy,
Fear's mystical power
Conjures up at this hour
Lights would stun even stark Necromancy.

175

III

It on Wood I but think,
From deal-coffin I shrink;
If on Bell, I hear a bell tolling;
For nothing can save
From that dead Home, the grave,
Tho' Hope, smiling Hope, sits cajoling.

IV

If murder and death
Chill our blood in Macbeth,
Talk of Duncan, we hear ravens croaking;
But the Duncan that's here
Is th' assassin, I fear,
Who kills us, remorseless, with joking.

V

Old Duncan, they say,
Can the merry fool play,
When seated amongst honest fellows.
Now Doctor of Mirth,
To fresh jokes he'll give birth,
And blow up the Fun with his Bellows.

176

VI

One Barclay, they quote,
Who on Quakery wrote;
But our friend's of another persuasion.
The pleas'd Undertaker
Says John is no Quaker,
Though Patients perhaps have occasion.

VIII

The vile small-pox Bryce
Can trim in a trice,
And Cow him, with prompt Vaccination,
The Whig taste he hit,
For you'll scarce find a Pitt
On the purified face of creation.

XI

In the doctoring art,
He who first took the start,
Named Phœbus, or rather Apollo,
In his chariot gay,
Rides about all the day,
An example which some Doctors follow.

177

XII

Not content with his skill,
In the Bolus and Pill,
He patronis'd idle Musicians;
So the Fiddle and Flute,
By prescription must suit
With the practice of learned Physicians.

XIV

By Helicon's stream,
If the Poets could dream,
'Twas Wine and not Water was flowing;
And a fork'd Hill we know
The God chose, just to show,
That a fork with the knife should be going.

XV

Like Leeches you bleed,
And like locusts you feed;
Ah! pardon a Poet's presumption,
But Oman dismay'd,
O'er his joints quite decayed,
Cries,—See, what a rapid Consumption!

178

XVI

Since you smile, then a fig
For each ominous Wig,
And adieu to absurd trepidation;
Let the wine, if 'tis good,
Take the course of our blood,
And flow round in blythe Circulation.