Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, TO DEAN SWIFT, BY SIR ARTHUR ACHESON, by JONATHAN SWIFT


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

Rhyming Dictionary Search
TO DEAN SWIFT, BY SIR ARTHUR ACHESON, by             Poet's Biography
First Line: Good cause have I to sing and vapour
Last Line: And winged with fame shall reach the skies.


Good cause have I to sing and vapour,
For I am landlord to the Drapier:
He, that of every ear's the charmer,
Now condescends to be my farmer,
And grace my villa with his strains;
Lives such a bard on British plains?
No; not in all the British court;
For none but witlings there resort,
Whose names and works (though dead) are made
Immortal by the Dunciad;
And sure, as monument of brass,
Their fame to future times shall pass,
How, with a weakly warbling tongue,
Of brazen knight they vainly sung:
A subject for their genius fit;
He dares defy both sense and wit.
What dares he not? He can, we know it,
A laureate make that is no poet;
A judge, without the least pretence
To common law, or common sense;
A bishop that is no divine;
And coxcombs in red ribbons shine:
Nay, he can make what's greater far,
A middle state 'twixt peace and war;
And say, there shall, for years together,
Be peace and war, and both, and neither.
Happy, O Market Hill! at least,
That court and courtiers have no taste:
You never else had known the Dean,
But, as of old, obscurely lain;
All things gone on the same dull track,
And Drapier's Hill been still Drumlack:
But now your name with Penshurst vies,
And winged with fame shall reach the skies.






Other Poems of Interest...
Home: PoetryExplorer.net