The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume 2 | Page 8

save their bail.?All met; and, silence thrice proclaimed,?One lawyer to each side was named.?The judge discover'd in her face?Resentments for her late disgrace;?And full of anger, shame, and grief,?Directed them to mind their brief;?Nor spend their time to show their reading:?She'd have a summary proceeding.?She gather'd under every head?The sum of what each lawyer said,?Gave her own reasons last, and then?Decreed the cause against the men.?But in a weighty case like this,?To show she did not judge amiss,?Which evil tongues might else report,?She made a speech in open court;?Wherein she grievously complains,?"How she was cheated by the swains;?On whose petition (humbly showing,?That women were not worth the wooing,?And that, unless the sex would mend,?The race of lovers soon must end)--?She was at Lord knows what expense?To form a nymph of wit and sense,?A model for her sex design'd,?Who never could one lover find.?She saw her favour was misplaced;?The fellows had a wretched taste;?She needs must tell them to their face,?They were a stupid, senseless race;?And, were she to begin again,?She'd study to reform the men;?Or add some grains of folly more?To women, than they had before,?To put them on an equal foot;?And this, or nothing else, would do't.?This might their mutual fancy strike;?Since every being loves its like.?"But now, repenting what was done,?She left all business to her son;?She put the world in his possession,?And let him use it at discretion."?The crier was order'd to dismiss?The court, who made his last "O yes!"?The goddess would no longer wait;?But, rising from her chair of state,?Left all below at six and seven,?Harness'd her doves, and flew to Heaven.
[Footnote 1: Hester, elder daughter of Bartholomew Vanhomrigh, a Dutch merchant in Dublin, where he acquired a fortune of some ?￡16,000. Upon his death, his widow and two daughters settled in London, about 1710-11, where Swift became intimate with the family. See "Prose Works," especially Journal to Stella. After Swift became Dean of St. Patrick's, Vanessa and her sister, on their mother's death, returned to Ireland. The younger sister died about 1720, and Vanessa died at Marlay Abbey in May, 1723.]
[Footnote 2: A lace so called after the celebrated French Minister, Colbert. Planch??'s "British Costume," 395.W. E. B.]
[Footnote 3: See the verses "On Censure," vol. i, p.160.--W. E. B.]
TO LOVE[1]
In all I wish, how happy should I be,?Thou grand Deluder, were it not for thee!?So weak thou art, that fools thy power despise;?And yet so strong, thou triumph'st o'er the wise.?Thy traps are laid with such peculiar art,?They catch the cautious, let the rash depart.?Most nets are fill'd by want of thought and care?But too much thinking brings us to thy snare;?Where, held by thee, in slavery we stay,?And throw the pleasing part of life away.?But, what does most my indignation move,?Discretion! thou wert ne'er a friend to Love:?Thy chief delight is to defeat those arts,?By which he kindles mutual flames in hearts;?While the blind loitering God is at his play,?Thou steal'st his golden pointed darts away:?Those darts which never fail; and in their stead?Convey'st malignant arrows tipt with lead:?The heedless God, suspecting no deceits,?Shoots on, and thinks he has done wondrous feats;?But the poor nymph, who feels her vitals burn,?And from her shepherd can find no return,?Laments, and rages at the power divine,?When, curst Discretion! all the fault was thine:?Cupid and Hymen thou hast set at odds,?And bred such feuds between those kindred gods,?That Venus cannot reconcile her sons;?When one appears, away the other runs.?The former scales, wherein he used to poise?Love against love, and equal joys with joys,?Are now fill'd up with avarice and pride,?Where titles, power, and riches, still subside.?Then, gentle Venus, to thy father run,?And tell him, how thy children are undone:?Prepare his bolts to give one fatal blow,?And strike Discretion to the shades below.
[Footnote 1: Found in Miss Vanhomrigh's desk, after her death, in the handwriting of Dr. Swift.--H.]
A REBUS. BY VANESSA
Cut the name of the man [1] who his mistress denied,?And let the first of it be only applied?To join with the prophet[2] who David did chide;?Then say what a horse is that runs very fast;[3]?And that which deserves to be first put the last;?Spell all then, and put them together, to find?The name and the virtues of him I design'd.?Like the patriarch in Egypt, he's versed in the state;?Like the prophet in Jewry, he's free with the great;?Like a racer he flies, to succour with speed,?When his friends want his aid, or desert is in need.
[Footnote 1: Jo-seph.]
[Footnote 2: Nathan.]
[Footnote 3: Swift.]
THE DEAN'S ANSWER
The nymph who wrote this in an amorous fit,?I cannot but envy the pride of her wit,?Which thus she will venture profusely to throw?On so mean a design, and a subject so low.?For mean's her design, and her subject as mean,?The first but a rebus, the last but a dean.?A dean's but a parson: and