Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, TO MY LEARNED FRIEND, THOMAS SHERIDAN, by JONATHAN SWIFT


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

TO MY LEARNED FRIEND, THOMAS SHERIDAN, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: O sheridan, the muses' pet, sweet friend
Last Line: "has touched, sees heaven, earth and shades profound.""]"
Subject(s): Sheridan, Thomas (1687-1738)


[O Sheridan, the muses' pet, sweet friend --
May gracious Phoebus greet you thus upon
Permessus' banks, just as your dinner guests
Laugh at your profuse puns and playful verse.
But, Sheridan, what god gave you at birth
The skill to probe into a boy's mind
And delve into the bottom of his brain?
Athena, standing by your cradle, said,
Predicting of your future mind, "Alas,
Unhappy lad who, born beneath our star,
Has heart but much less body than a ghost!
Your chirping jokes negate your ghostly frame --
The fly's thighs, mouse paws and the heron's legs.
What nature has not bodily supplied
Your mind will supplement; your teaching soon
Will bring about a corps of learned youths,
Their minds instructed in the noble arts.
Behold, Apollo's band will come to heal
The world. But yet they wrangle and ensnarl
The god's great gifts into a tangled knot.

["Still, portents of your birth do not deceive
You; and, the confidant always of gods,
You may discover if Apollo's smiled
Upon a newborn child, or if a cold
And horrid future lies in store for him.

["As surely as you see the seeds deep down
And you disclose how they may thrust themselves
Aloft and strive at last to reach the gleams
Of light, just so a girl awakes the spark
That sleeps beneath the dormant ash.

["That lad will recognize you as his teacher.
No matter what his star, or how his mother
Indulges him; the mother's in the branch.

["And yet the golden branch, the Sibyl's gift,
Has only shown Aeneas' home in Hell:
So oft the lad, whom once your golden wand
Has touched, sees heaven, earth and shades profound."]





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