Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, TO DR. DELANY, ON THE LIBELS WRIT AGAINST HIM, by JONATHAN SWIFT


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

TO DR. DELANY, ON THE LIBELS WRIT AGAINST HIM, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: As some raw youth in country bred
Last Line: Be that my motto, and my fate.
Subject(s): Defamation; Slander; Libel


As some raw youth in country bred,
To arms by thirst of honour led,
When at a skirmish first he hears
The bullets whistling round his ears,
Will duck his head, aside will start,
And feel a trembling at his heart:
Till, scaping oft without a wound,
Lessens the terror of the sound:
Fly bullets now as thick as hops,
He runs into the cannon's chops.
An author thus who pants for fame
Begins the world with fear and shame,
When first in print, you see him dread
Each pot-gun levelled at his head:
The lead yon critic's quill contains,
Is destined to beat out his brains.
As if he heard loud thunders roll,
Cries, Lord have mercy on his soul;
Concluding, that another shot
Will strike him dead upon the spot:
But, when with squibbing, flashing, popping,
He cannot see one creature dropping:
That, missing fire, or missing aim,
His life is safe, I mean his fame,
The danger past, takes heart of grace,
And looks a critic in the face.
Though splendour gives the fairest mark
To poisoned arrows from the dark,
Yet, 'in yourself when smooth and round',
They glance aside without a wound.
'Tis said, the gods tried all their art,
How, pain they might from pleasure part:
But, little could their strength avail,
Both still are fastened by the tail.
Thus, fame and censure with a tether
By fate are always linked together.
Why will you aim to be preferred
In wit before the common herd?
And yet, grow mortified and vexed
To pay the penalty annexed.
'Tis eminence makes envy rise,
As fairest fruits attract the flies.
Should stupid libels grieve your mind,
You soon a remedy may find;
Lie down obscure like other folks
Below the lash of snarlers' jokes.
Their faction is five hundred odds,
For every coxcomb lends them rods;
Can sneer as learnedly as they,
Like females o'er their morning tea.
You say, the muse will not contain,
And write you must, or break a vein:
Then, if you find the terms too hard,
No longer my advice regard:
But raise your fancy on the wing;
The Irish senate's praises sing:
How jealous of the nation's freedom,
And, for corruptions, how they weed 'em.
How each the public good pursues,
How far their hearts from private views,
Make all true patriots up to shoe-boys
Huzza their brethren at the Blue Boys'.
Thus grown a member of the club,
No longer dread the rage of Grub.
How oft am I for rhyme to seek?
To dress a thought, may toil a week;
And then, how thankful to the town,
If all my pains will earn a crown.
Whilst, every critic can devour
My work and me in half an hour.
Would men of genius cease to write,
The rogues must die for want and spite;
Must die for want of food and raiment,
If scandal did not find them payment.
How cheerfully the hawkers cry
A satire, and the gentry buy!
While my hard-laboured poem pines
Unsold upon the printer's lines.
A genius in the reverend gown,
Must ever keep its owner down:
'Tis an unnatural conjunction,
And spoils the credit of the function.
Round all your brethren cast your eyes,
Point out the surest men to rise,
That club of candidates in black,
The least deserving of the pack;
Aspiring, factious, fierce and loud;
With grace and learning unendowed,
Can turn their hands to every job,
The fittest tools to work for Bob:
Will sooner coin a thousand lies
Than suffer men of parts to rise:
They crowd about preferment's gate,
And press you down with all their weight.
For, as of old, mathematicians
Were by the vulgar thought magicians;
So academic dull ale-drinkers
Pronounce all men of wit, free-thinkers.
Wit, as the chief of virtue's friends,
Disdains to serve ignoble ends.
Observe what loads of stupid rhymes
Oppress us in corrupted times:
What pamphlets in a court's defence
Show reason, grammar, truth, or sense?
For, though the muse delights in fiction,
She ne'er inspires against conviction.
Then keep your virtue still unmixed,
And let not faction come betwixt.
By party-steps no grandeur climb at,
Though it would make you England's primate:
First learn the science to be dull,
You then may soon your conscience lull;
If not, however seated high,
Your genius in your face will fly.
When Jove was, from his teeming head,
Of wit's fair goddess brought to bed,
There followed at his lying-in
For afterbirth, a sooterkin;
Which, as the nurse pursued to kill,
Attained by flight the muses' hill;
There in the soil began to root,
And littered at Parnassus' foot.
From hence the critic-vermin sprung,
With harpy claws, and poisonous tongue,
Who fatten on poetic scraps;
Too cunning to be caught in traps.
Dame Nature, as the learned show,
Provides each animal its foe:
Hounds hunt the hare, the wily fox
Devours your geese, the wolf your flocks:
Thus, envy pleads a natural claim
To persecute the muses' fame;
On poets in all times abusive,
From Homer down to Pope inclusive.
Yet, what avails it to complain?
You try to take revenge in vain.
A rat your utmost rage defies
That safe behind the wainscoat lies.
Say, did you ever know by sight
In cheese an individual mite?
Show me the same numeric flea,
That bit your neck but yesterday:
You then may boldly go in quest
To find the Grub Street poet's nest.
What sponging-house in dread of gaol
Receives them while they wait for bail?
What alley are they nestled in,
To flourish o'er a cup of gin?
Find the last garret where they lay;
Or cellar, where they starve today:
Suppose you had them all trepanned
With each a libel in his hand:
What punishment would you inflict?
Or call 'em rogues, or get them kicked:
These they have often tried before;
You but oblige 'em so much more:
Themselves would be the first to tell,
To make their trash the better sell.
You have been libelled -- let us know
What fool officious told you so.
Will you regard the hawker's cries
Who in his titles always lies?
Whate'er the noisy scoundrel says
It might be something in your praise:
And praise bestowed in Grub Street rhymes,
Would vex one more a thousand times.
Till critics blame, and judges praise,
The poet cannot claim his bays;
On me, when dunces are satiric,
I take it for a panegyric.
'Hated by fools, and fools to hate',
Be that my motto, and my fate.






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