Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE VIRTUES OF SID HAMET THE MAGICIAN'S ROD, by JONATHAN SWIFT


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE VIRTUES OF SID HAMET THE MAGICIAN'S ROD, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: The rod was but a harmless wand
Last Line: His next may be a rod in piss.
Subject(s): Magic


The rod was but a harmless wand,
While Moses held it in his hand;
But soon as e'er he laid it down,
'Twas a devouring serpent grown.
Our great magician, Hamet Sid,
Reverses what the prophet did:
His rod was honest English wood,
That senseless in a corner stood,
Till metamorphosed by his grasp,
It grew an all-devouring asp;
Would hiss and sting, and roll, and twist,
By the mere virtue of his fist:
But when he laid it down, as quick
Resumed the figure of a stick.
So to her midnight feasts the hag
Rides on a broomstick for a nag,
That raised by magic of her breech,
O'er land and sea conveys the witch:
But with the morning dawn resumes
The peaceful state of common brooms.
They tell us something strange and odd,
About a certain magic rod,
That bending down its top divines
Whene'er the soil has golden mines:
Where there are none, it stands erect,
Scorning to show the least respect.
As ready was the wand of Sid
To bend where golden mines were hid;
In Scottish hills found precious ore,
Where none e'er looked for it before:
And by a gentle bow divined
How well a cully's purse was lined:
To a forlorn and broken rake,
Stood without motion, like a stake.
The rod of Hermes was renowned
For charms above and under ground;
To sleep could mortal eyelids fix,
And drive departed souls to Styx.
That rod was just a type of Sid's,
Which o'er a British senate's lids
Could scatter opium full as well,
And drive as many souls to hell.
Sid's rod was slender, white, and tall,
Which oft he used to fish withal:
A place was fastened to the hook,
And many a score of gudgeons took;
Yet, still so happy was his fate,
He caught his fish, and saved his bait.
Sid's brethren of the conjuring tribe
A circle with their rod describe,
Which proves a magical redoubt,
To keep mischievous spirits out:
Sid's rod was of a larger stride,
And made a circle thrice as wide;
Where spirits thronged with hideous din,
And he stood there to take them in.
But, when the enchanted rod was broke,
They vanished in a stinking smoke.
Achilles' sceptre was of wood,
Like Sid's, but nothing near so good:
Though down from ancestors divine,
Transmitted to the hero's line,
Thence, through a long descent of kings,
Came an heirloom, as Homer sings,
Though this description looks so big,
That sceptre was a sapless twig;
Which, from the fatal day when first
It left the forest where 'twas nursed,
As Homer tells us o'er and o'er,
Nor leaf, nor fruit, nor blossom bore.
Sid's sceptre, full of juice, did shoot
In golden boughs, and golden fruit;
And he, the dragon never sleeping,
Guarded each fair Hesperian pippin.
No hobbyhorse, with gorgeous top,
The dearest in Charles Mather's shop,
Or glittering tinsel of May Fair,
Could with this rod of Sid's compare.
Dear Sid, then why wert thou so mad
To break thy rod like naughty lad?
You should have kissed it in your distress,
And then returned it to your mistress;
Or made it a Newmarket switch,
And not a rod for thy own breech.
But since old Sid has broken this,
His next may be a rod in piss.






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