University of Virginia Library

Ah, must I die, like Varlets hung in health,
And kick the bucket, squeak, and tip all nine?
Perhaps the Caitiffs think, like Schism's sons,
To benefit our cause by persecution:
For some who smite Religion give her health,
As rough Buzaglo beats the gouty firm!
Or under the pretence of being kind,
Imagine us, like turnips on the glebe,
Who'll thrive the better being trodden down:
I'll purchase Sherlock, Drelincourt and Dodd,
Thomas Aquinas and old Jerome's vols,
Then gather resignation from the page:
Agreeably to the tenets of my creed,
This is probation for the realms of Joy!
But is it not an enigmatic law,
The faithful must be damn'd before they die,
And like th'asbestos furnac'd to be white?
That Jove will only flog the boys he loves,
And let the buttocks of the bad alone?
But I'm an Optimist, and all is right.
Behold my Father there, a tough old blade.
He kept his Thais and he fought his man.
See, with a tear-gall'd eye, the thing he is,
Thus cank'ring Time will steal us from ourselves!
Alas, the summer of his being's sped;
Lo, like a pithless, bald, dismantled Oak,
Whose last leaf's shatter'd by th'Autumnal gust,
He tott'ring bends to bruise the vernal sod,
Shorn to the stump, and fitting to be riv'd,
Whene'er the Thunderer wings the final blaze.

Abhorrent Death, thou Prince of gourmands hence,
Who feeds felicitous on human kind:
You drink the blood from Beauty's ruby lip,
And loose those sinews which invig'rate youth:
Ah! rattle not your gumless fangs at me,
Thou King of terrors, and thou child of Sin:
Th'Anthropophagi, who bleak Syria rov'd,
Those of Brazil, and eke the Thracian steeds:
Astydamus or Cœlum's cruel son,
Potitius, Phago or Nisæus,
Philoxenus, or Gascoigne or Lebeck,
Arpiages or gross Heliogab,
The Sewers embouchure at Holborn bridge!
That steamy hole in Walter's wooden head!
The Fowl of Egypt, or the Corm'rant's maw,
Deputy Leaky, Quin, or Sawney Bean,
Could not devour one tythe so much as you!
Fever, Gout, Ague, Palsy and Catarrh,
Sciatica and Tooth-ach, Piles and Spleen,
Atrophy, Gravel, Plethora and Gleet,
Hydrophobia, Phthisis, Gripes and Phlegm,
Paraphimosis, Mulligrubs and Flux,
Tubercle, Emprostotonas and Dumps,
Lumbago, Lues, Vertigo and Cramp,
Dropsy, Glums, Scurvy, Spasm, Bile and Lax,
And all your pestilential Slaves avaunt,
Flit to your Grandmama Pandora's chest,
And be shut up in everlasting night.
But can my weak solicitude avail?
Oh, no—then, ghastly Archer, do your worst,
I'll bare my breast, and placid meet Decay,
For he who fears to die's not fit to live.
Why should I bear the taunts of little men,
Who could with prompitude be now supprest,
But that I feel it glorious to obey,
And meet the seeming horror as I ought?
When the tremendous Source of matter wills,
To chain the blandishment—to urge the pang,
And shade our frail estate with sable woe;
Be sure in the concussion of events,
The partial ill precedes a mighty good,
As gloomy Night bathes Nature with her dews:
Supported and supporting we dissolve,
All would be blest if all knew what they were.

What are to me the uses of this world,
When nothing's serious in mortality?
As Piety's the child of Dread, I'll pray,
Pater noster qui es in coelis, heu,
Miserere nobis—but I'll no more,
Britons have turn'd their backs on beamy Faith:
They smile at orisons from Priests and me;
Men hope eventual mercy, yielding none.