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


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

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.






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