QUESTION AND ANSWER QUESTION NOSE and chin would shame a knocker; Wrinkles that would puzzle Cocker; Mouth which marks the envious scorner, With a scorpion in each corner, Turning its quick tail to sting you In the place that most may wring you; Eyes of lead-like hue, and gummy; Carcass pick'd out from some mummy; Bowels (but they were forgotten, Save the liver, and that's rotten); Skin all sallow, flesh all sodden, -- Form the devil would frighten God in. Is 't a corpse stuck up for show, Galvanised at times to go? With the Scripture in connection, New proof of the resurrection? Vampire, ghost, or goul, what is it? I would walk ten miles to miss it. ANSWER Many passengers arrest one, To demand the same free question. Shorter's my reply, and franker, -- That's the Bard, the Beau, the Banker. Yet if you could bring about Just to turn him inside out, Satan's self would seem less sooty, And his present aspect -- Beauty. Mark that (as he masks the bilious Air, so softly supercilious) Chasten'd bow, and mock humility, Almost sicken to servility; Hear his tone (which is to talking That which creeping is to walking, Now on all-fours, now on tip-toe); Hear the tales he lends his lip to; Little hints of heavy scandals; Every friend in turn he handles; All which women or which men do, Glides forth in an innuendo, Clothed in odds and ends of humour -- Herald of each paltry rumour, From divorces down to dresses, Women's frailties, men's excesses, All which life presents of evil Make for him a constant revel. You're his foe, for that he fears you, And in absence blasts and sears you: You're his friend -- for that he hates you, First caresses, and then baits you -- Darting on the opportunity When to do it with impunity: You are neither -- then he'll flatter, Till he finds some trait for satire; Hunts your weak point out, then shows it Where it injures to disclose it, In the mode that's most invidious, Adding every trait that's hideous -- From the bile, whose blackening river Rushes through his Stygian liver. Then he thinks himself a lover -- Why? I really can't discover, In his mind, age, face, or figure; Viper-broth might give him vigour, -- Let him keep the cauldron steady, He the venom has already. For his faults -- he has but one, -- 'T is but envy, when all's done. He but pays the pain he suffers, Clipping, like a pair of snuffers, Lights which ought to burn the brighter For this temporary blighter. He's the cancer of his species, And will eat himself to pieces, -- Plague personified, and famine, -- Devil, whose sole delight is damning. For his merits, would you know 'em? Once he wrote a pretty Poem. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...AH, BIND MY HANDS by JOHANNA AMBROSIUS SONNETS OF MANHOOD: 11. THE GREEK POET IN ENGLAND by GEORGE BARLOW (1847-1913) ATTUNED by JULIEN AUGUSTE PELAGE BRIZEUX THE MUD-FISH, BY AN INDIGNANT TORY FOOTMAN by CHARLES WILLIAM SHIRLEY BROOKS VERMONT MORGANS by DANIEL LEAVENS CADY TO MY FRIEND GILBERT NEVILLE, FROM WREST by THOMAS CAREW |