Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, TO THE DEAN, WHEN IN ENGLAND, IN 1726, by THOMAS SHERIDAN (1687-1738)


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

TO THE DEAN, WHEN IN ENGLAND, IN 1726, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: You will excuse me, I suppose
Last Line: Because I've more vexation here.
Subject(s): Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)


You will excuse me, I suppose,
For sending rhyme instead of prose.
Because hot weather makes me lazy,
To write in meter is more easy.

While you are trudging London town,
I'm strolling Dublin up and down;
While you converse with lords and dukes,
I have their betters here, my books:
Fixed in an elbow-chair at ease,
I choose companions as I please.
I'd rather have one single shelf
Than all my friends, except yourself;
For, after all that can be said,
Our best acquaintance are the dead.
While you're in raptures with Faustina,
I'm charmed at home with our Sheelina;
While you are starving there in state,
I'm cramming here with butcher's meat.
You say, when with those lords you dine,
They treat you with the best of wine,
Burgundy, Cyprus and Tokay;
Why, so can we, as well as they.
No reason, then, my dear good Dean,
But you should travel home again.
What though you mayn't in Ireland hope
To find such folk as Gay and Pope?
If you with rhymers here would share
But half the wit that you can spare,
I'd lay twelve eggs, that in twelve days,
You'd make a doz'n of Popes and Gays.

Our weather's good, our sky is clear;
We've every joy, if you were here;
So lofty and so bright a sky
Was never seen by Ireland's Eye!
I think it fit to let you know,
This week I shall to Quilca go
To see McFadden's horny brothers
First suck, and after bull their mothers;
To see, alas, my withered trees!
To see what all the country sees!
My stunted quicks, my famished beeves,
My servants such a pack of thieves,
My shattered firs, my blasted oaks,
My house in common to all folks,
No cabbage for a single snail,
My turnips, carrots, parsnips fail,
My no green peas, my few green sprouts,
My mother always in the pouts,
My horses rid or gone astray,
My fish all stol'n or run away,
My mutton lean, my pullets old,
My poultry starved, the corn all sold.

A man come now from Quilca says,
"They've stol'n the locks from all your keys";
But what must fret and vex me more,
He says, "They stole the keys before.
They've stol'n the knives from all the forks,
And half the cows from half the sturks."
Nay more, the fellow swears and vows,
"They've stol'n the sturks from half the cows."
With many more accounts of woe,
Yet, though the de'il be there, I'll go:
'Twixt you and me, the reason's clear,
Because I've more vexation here.





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