The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume 1 | Page 9

could neither obviate nor shun.
Britannia stripp'd of her sole guard, the laws,?Ready to fall Rome's bloody sacrifice;?You straight stepp'd in, and from the monster's jaws?Did bravely snatch the lovely, helpless prize.
Nor this is all; as glorious is the care?To preserve conquests, as at first to gain:?In this your virtue claims a double share,?Which, what it bravely won, does well maintain.
Your arm has now your rightful title show'd,?An arm on which all Europe's hopes depend,?To which they look as to some guardian God,?That must their doubtful liberty defend.
Amazed, thy action at the Boyne we see!?When Schomberg started at the vast design:?The boundless glory all redounds to thee,?The impulse, the fight, th'event, were wholly thine.
The brave attempt does all our foes disarm;?You need but now give orders and command,?Your name shall the remaining work perform,?And spare the labour of your conquering hand.
France does in vain her feeble arts apply,?To interrupt the fortune of your course:?Your influence does the vain attacks defy?Of secret malice, or of open force.
Boldly we hence the brave commencement date?Of glorious deeds, that must all tongues employ;?William's the pledge and earnest given by fate,?Of England's glory, and her lasting joy.
ODE TO THE ATHENIAN SOCIETY[1]
Moor Park, Feb. 14, 1691.
I
As when the deluge first began to fall,?That mighty ebb never to flow again,?When this huge body's moisture was so great,?It quite o'ercame the vital heat;?That mountain which was highest, first of all?Appear'd above the universal main,?To bless the primitive sailor's weary sight;?And 'twas perhaps Parnassus, if in height?It be as great as 'tis in fame,?And nigh to Heaven as is its name;?So, after the inundation of a war,?When learning's little household did embark,?With her world's fruitful system, in her sacred ark,?At the first ebb of noise and fears,?Philosophy's exalted head appears;?And the Dove-Muse will now no longer stay,?But plumes her silver wings, and flies away;?And now a laurel wreath she brings from far,?To crown the happy conqueror,?To show the flood begins to cease,?And brings the dear reward of victory and peace.
II
The eager Muse took wing upon the waves' decline,?When war her cloudy aspect just withdrew,?When the bright sun of peace began to shine,?And for a while in heavenly contemplation sat,?On the high top of peaceful Ararat;?And pluck'd a laurel branch, (for laurel was the first that grew, The first of plants after the thunder, storm and rain,)?And thence, with joyful, nimble wing,?Flew dutifully back again,?And made an humble chaplet for the king.[2]?And the Dove-Muse is fled once more,?(Glad of the victory, yet frighten'd at the war,)?And now discovers from afar?A peaceful and a flourishing shore:?No sooner did she land?On the delightful strand,?Than straight she sees the country all around,?Where fatal Neptune ruled erewhile,?Scatter'd with flowery vales, with fruitful gardens crown'd,
And many a pleasant wood;?As if the universal Nile?Had rather water'd it than drown'd:?It seems some floating piece of Paradise,?Preserved by wonder from the flood,?Long wandering through the deep, as we are told
Famed Delos[3] did of old;?And the transported Muse imagined it?To be a fitter birth-place for the God of wit,
Or the much-talk'd-of oracular grove;?When, with amazing joy, she hears?An unknown music all around,
Charming her greedy ears?With many a heavenly song?Of nature and of art, of deep philosophy and love;?While angels tune the voice, and God inspires the tongue.?In vain she catches at the empty sound,?In vain pursues the music with her longing eye,?And courts the wanton echoes as they fly.
III
Pardon, ye great unknown, and far-exalted men,?The wild excursions of a youthful pen;?Forgive a young and (almost) virgin Muse,?Whom blind and eager curiosity
(Yet curiosity, they say,?Is in her sex a crime needs no excuse)
Has forced to grope her uncouth way,?After a mighty light that leads her wandering eye:?No wonder then she quits the narrow path of sense?For a dear ramble through impertinence;?Impertinence! the scurvy of mankind.?And all we fools, who are the greater part of it,?Though we be of two different factions still,?Both the good-natured and the ill,?Yet wheresoe'er you look, you'll always find?We join, like flies and wasps, in buzzing about wit.?In me, who am of the first sect of these,?All merit, that transcends the humble rules?Of my own dazzled scanty sense,?Begets a kinder folly and impertinence
Of admiration and of praise.?And our good brethren of the surly sect,?Must e'en all herd us with their kindred fools:?For though possess'd of present vogue, they've made?Railing a rule of wit, and obloquy a trade;?Yet the same want of brains produces each effect.?And you, whom Pluto's helm does wisely shroud?From us, the blind and thoughtless crowd,?Like the famed hero in his mother's cloud,?Who both our follies and impertinences see,?Do laugh perhaps at theirs, and pity mine and me.
IV
But censure's to be understood?Th'authentic mark of the elect,?The public stamp Heaven sets on all that's great and good,?Our shallow search and judgment to direct.
The war, methinks, has made?Our wit and learning narrow as our trade;?Instead of boldly