Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, NEW YEAR'S GIFT FOR THE DEAN OF ST. PATRICK'S, by THOMAS SHERIDAN (1687-1738)


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

NEW YEAR'S GIFT FOR THE DEAN OF ST. PATRICK'S, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: How few can be of grandeur
Last Line: His friends are more, his honors less.
Subject(s): Holidays; New Year


How few can be of grandeur sure!
The high may fall, the rich be poor.
The only favorite at court
Tomorrow may be Fortune's sport;
For all her pleasure and her aim
Is to destroy both pow'r and fame.

Of this the Dean is an example;
No instance is more plain and ample.
The world did never yet produce
For courts a man of greater use.
Nor has the world supplied us yet
With more vivacity and wit;
Merry alternately and wise,
To please the statesman and advise.
Through all the last and glorious reign
Was nothing done without the Dean,
The courtier's prop, the nation's pride,
But now, alas, he's thrown aside!
He's quite forgot, and so's the queen,
As if they both had never been.

To see him now a mountaineer!
Oh! What a mighty fall is here!
From settling governments and thrones,
To splitting rocks and piling stones.
Instead of Bolingbroke and Anna,
Shane Tunnelly and Bryan Granna;
Oxford and Ormond he supplies
In every Irish Teague he spies;
So far forgetting his old station,
He seems to like their conversation.
Conforming to the tattered rabble,
He learns their Irish tongue to gabble;
And what our anger more provokes,
He's pleased with their insipid jokes.
Then turns and asks them who does lack a
Good plug or pipeful of tobacco.
All cry they want; to every man
He gives, extravagant, a span.
Thus are they grown more fond than ever,
And he is highly in their favor.

Bright Stella, Quilca's greatest pride,
For them he scorns and lays aside;
And Sheridan is left alone
All day to gape and stretch and groan,
While grumbling, poor, complaining Dingley
Is left to care and trouble singly.

All o'er the mountains spreads the rumor
Both of his bounty and good humor,
So that each shepherdess and swain
Comes flocking here to see the Dean.
All spread around the land; you'd swear
That every day we kept a fair.
My fields are brought to such a pass
-- I have not left a blade of grass --
That all my wethers and my beeves
Are slighted by the very thieves.

At night, right loath to quit the park,
His work just ended by the dark,
With all his pioneers he comes
To make more work for whisks and brooms.
Then, seated in an elbow-chair,
To take a nap he does prepare,
While two fair damsels from the lawns
Lull him asleep with soft cronawns.

Thus are his days in delving spent,
His nights in music and content.
He seems to gain by his distress;
His friends are more, his honors less.





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