Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, TOM PUN-SIBI METAMORPHOSED: OR, THE GIBER GIBED, by WILLIAM TISDALL



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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

TOM PUN-SIBI METAMORPHOSED: OR, THE GIBER GIBED, by                    
First Line: Tom was a little merry grig
Last Line: His parrot, spaniel, but his pig.
Subject(s): Sheridan, Thomas (1687-1738); Sycophants


Tom was a little merry grig,
Fiddled and danced to his own jig,
Good-natured but a little silly,
Irresolute and shally-shilly:
What he should do, he couldn't guess;
They moved him like a man at chess;
S-----t told him once that he had wit,
S----- was in jest, poor Tom was bit,
Though himself second son of Phoebus,
For ballad, pun, lampoon and rebus.
He took a draught of Helicon,
But swallowed so much water down,
He got a dropsy; now they say 'tis
Turned to poetic diabetes;
For all the liquor he has passed
Is without spirit, salt or taste;
But, since it passed, Tom thought it wit,
And so he writ and writ and writ.
He writ the famous Punning Art,
The benefit of piss and fart;
He writ The Wonder of All Wonders,
He writ The Blunder of All Blunders;
He writ a merry farce for poppet,
Taught actors how to squeak and hop it;
A treatise on the Wooden Man,
A ballad on the nose of Dan,
The Art of Making April Fools,
And four-and-thirty quibbling rules.
The learned say that Tom went snacks
With philomaths, for almanacs;
though they divided are, for some say
He writ for Whalley, some for Cumpstey.
Hundreds there are who will make oath
That he writ almanacs for both;
And, though they made the calculations,
Tom writ the monthly observations.
Such were his writings, but his chatter
Was one continued clitter-clatter.
Swift slit his tongue, and made it talk,
From "cup of sack" and "walk, knave, walk!"
And fitted little prating Poll
For wire cage in Common Hall,
Made him expert at quibble jargon,
And quaint at selling of a bargain.
Poll, he could talk in diff'rent lingos,
But he could not be taught Distinguos;
Swift tried in vain, and angry thereat,
Into a spaniel turned the parrot;
Made him to walk on his hind legs;
He dances, paws, and fawns, and begs,
Then cuts a caper o'er a stick,
Lies close, does whine, and creep, and lick.
Swift put a bit upon his snout;
Poor Tom! he daren't look about;
But when that Swift does give the word,
He snaps it up, though 'twere a turd.
Swift strokes his back, and gives him victual,
And then he makes him lick his spittle.
Sometimes he takes him on his lap,
and makes him grin, and snarl, and snap.
He set the little cur at me;
Kicked, he leapt upon his knee;
I took him by the neck to shake him,
And made him void his Album Graecum.
"Turn out the stinking cur, pox take him,"
Quoth Swift, though Swift could sooner want any
Thing in the world, than a Tantany,
And thus not only makes his grig
His parrot, spaniel, but his pig.





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