 | Poems |  |
187
AN IRREGULAR ODE,
AS IT WAS PERFORMED AT THE BEGINNING OF THE WORLD, By three notorious Old Women, Juggy Andrews, Pegg Topham, and Moll Bell.
Three sprigs of Hecate in three districts born;
The Horse-guards, York, and Grub-street did adorn;
The first, in matchless mummery was clever,
And sold her mother, Common Sense, for ever.
The second beldam all the rest surpast,
In ease and arrogance—to mould the last;
As Nature's powers could no farther go,
To make a third, she join'd the other two;
Who calls mankind to marvel at her dealing,
And gets her pence by—literary stealing.
Such beldams as these ne'er encounter'd before,
And ne'er will again, until Time is no more;
They met in the World, and shook hands like Scotch cousins,
And were wedded by Fate, to get monsters by dozens.
These witches agreed,
In an hour of—need,
As the only means left them to fatten and feed,
To mount all at once, on Apollo's own steed;
And, by joining their stock, like three empyric doctors,
To gorge on men's vices, like bailiffs and proctors,
The first, a vile sybil, who seeks paupers huts,
To coax little spinsters with ginger-bread nuts:
Gave lies and salt-petre;
Some malice, some metre;
A few pointless strokes,
Old songs and stale jokes;
With witless bon mots from a vile memorandum;
Which the witch did essay,
Once to weave in a play,
But Pit, Box, or Gods could not stand 'em.
The second presented some well-temper'd fuel,
To kindle a flame in the World's busy ball,
As prejudice, pique, or occasion should call;
With ample decoctions of weak water-gruel;
Some cowslips half wither'd, and ill gather'd daisies,
An ounce of crampt wit, and a pound of strange phrases;
Which she stole on the side of the Parnassian mountain,
When she sipt the foul streams from the helicon fountain.
The third,
More absurd,
Than the iron-fed bird;
And whose brains lacked juice like an over-squeezed curd,
Had nothing of value to give but her—Word.
Except a small treatise 'gainst—running in debt;
And some tomes of the chaste Aretine,
With a few comic traits of the fair Antoinette,
When she wanders to see and be seen.
The Horse-guards, York, and Grub-street did adorn;
The first, in matchless mummery was clever,
And sold her mother, Common Sense, for ever.
The second beldam all the rest surpast,
In ease and arrogance—to mould the last;
As Nature's powers could no farther go,
To make a third, she join'd the other two;
Who calls mankind to marvel at her dealing,
And gets her pence by—literary stealing.
Such beldams as these ne'er encounter'd before,
And ne'er will again, until Time is no more;
They met in the World, and shook hands like Scotch cousins,
And were wedded by Fate, to get monsters by dozens.
188
In an hour of—need,
As the only means left them to fatten and feed,
To mount all at once, on Apollo's own steed;
And, by joining their stock, like three empyric doctors,
To gorge on men's vices, like bailiffs and proctors,
The first, a vile sybil, who seeks paupers huts,
To coax little spinsters with ginger-bread nuts:
Gave lies and salt-petre;
Some malice, some metre;
A few pointless strokes,
Old songs and stale jokes;
With witless bon mots from a vile memorandum;
Which the witch did essay,
Once to weave in a play,
But Pit, Box, or Gods could not stand 'em.
The second presented some well-temper'd fuel,
To kindle a flame in the World's busy ball,
As prejudice, pique, or occasion should call;
With ample decoctions of weak water-gruel;
189
An ounce of crampt wit, and a pound of strange phrases;
Which she stole on the side of the Parnassian mountain,
When she sipt the foul streams from the helicon fountain.
190
More absurd,
Than the iron-fed bird;
And whose brains lacked juice like an over-squeezed curd,
Had nothing of value to give but her—Word.
Except a small treatise 'gainst—running in debt;
And some tomes of the chaste Aretine,
With a few comic traits of the fair Antoinette,
When she wanders to see and be seen.
With such base ingredients they cooked up a hash
A vile salmagundy of unwholsome trash,
To poison the million, and bring in the—cash.
To these were annexed some potations of pride,
With a large share of Impudence thrown in beside;
Thus socially damn'd, their conceptions they utter,
And scold, scratch, and kiss, like three cats in a gutter,
Destroy beauteous Reason as much as they're able,
And have coin'd a new tongue like the builders at Babel.
A vile salmagundy of unwholsome trash,
To poison the million, and bring in the—cash.
To these were annexed some potations of pride,
With a large share of Impudence thrown in beside;
Thus socially damn'd, their conceptions they utter,
And scold, scratch, and kiss, like three cats in a gutter,
Destroy beauteous Reason as much as they're able,
And have coin'd a new tongue like the builders at Babel.
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