How few can be of grandeur sure! The high may fall, the rich be poor. The only favorite at court Tomorrow may be Fortune's sport; For all her pleasure and her aim Is to destroy both pow'r and fame. Of this the Dean is an example; No instance is more plain and ample. The world did never yet produce For courts a man of greater use. Nor has the world supplied us yet With more vivacity and wit; Merry alternately and wise, To please the statesman and advise. Through all the last and glorious reign Was nothing done without the Dean, The courtier's prop, the nation's pride, But now, alas, he's thrown aside! He's quite forgot, and so's the queen, As if they both had never been. To see him now a mountaineer! Oh! What a mighty fall is here! From settling governments and thrones, To splitting rocks and piling stones. Instead of Bolingbroke and Anna, Shane Tunnelly and Bryan Granna; Oxford and Ormond he supplies In every Irish Teague he spies; So far forgetting his old station, He seems to like their conversation. Conforming to the tattered rabble, He learns their Irish tongue to gabble; And what our anger more provokes, He's pleased with their insipid jokes. Then turns and asks them who does lack a Good plug or pipeful of tobacco. All cry they want; to every man He gives, extravagant, a span. Thus are they grown more fond than ever, And he is highly in their favor. Bright Stella, Quilca's greatest pride, For them he scorns and lays aside; And Sheridan is left alone All day to gape and stretch and groan, While grumbling, poor, complaining Dingley Is left to care and trouble singly. All o'er the mountains spreads the rumor Both of his bounty and good humor, So that each shepherdess and swain Comes flocking here to see the Dean. All spread around the land; you'd swear That every day we kept a fair. My fields are brought to such a pass -- I have not left a blade of grass -- That all my wethers and my beeves Are slighted by the very thieves. At night, right loath to quit the park, His work just ended by the dark, With all his pioneers he comes To make more work for whisks and brooms. Then, seated in an elbow-chair, To take a nap he does prepare, While two fair damsels from the lawns Lull him asleep with soft cronawns. Thus are his days in delving spent, His nights in music and content. He seems to gain by his distress; His friends are more, his honors less. |