Зображення сторінки
PDF
ePub

Here shift the scene to represent,
How those I love my death lament.
Poor Pope will grieve a month, and Gay
A week, and Arbuthnot a day.

St. John himself will scarce forbear
To bite his pen, and drop a tear.
The rest will give a shrug, and cry,
"I'm sorry-but we all must die!"
Indifference, clad in wisdom's guise,
All fortitude of mind supplies:
For how can stony bowels melt
In those who never pity felt?
When we are lash'd, they kiss the rod,
Resigning to the will of God.

The fools, my juniors by a year,
Are tortured with suspense and fear;
Who wisely thought my age a screen,
When death approach'd, to stand between :

The screen removed, their hearts are trembling;
They mourn for me without dissembling.
My female friends, whose tender hearts
Have better learn'd to act their parts,
Receive the news in doleful dumps:
"The Dean is dead: (Pray what is trumps?)
Then, Lord have mercy on his soul!
(Ladies, I'll venture for the vole.)
Six deans, they say, must bear the pall:
(I wish I knew what king to call.)
Madam, your husband will attend
The funeral of so good a friend?"
"No, madam, 't is a shocking sight;
And he's engaged to-morrow night :
My lady Club will take it ill,
If he should fail her at quadrille.
He loved the Dean-(I lead a heart :)
But dearest friends, they say, must part.
His time was come; he ran his race;

We hope he's in a better place."

Why do we grieve that friends should die? No loss more easy to supply.

One year is past; a different scene!
No farther mention of the Dean,
Who now, alas! no more is miss'd,
Than if he never did exist.

Where's now the favourite of Apollo?
Departed-and his works must follow;
Must undergo the common fate;
His kind of wit is out of date.

Some country squire to Lintot goes,
Inquires for Swift in verse and prose.
Says Lintot, "I have heard the name;
He died a year ago."-" The same.”
He searches all the shop in vain.

[ocr errors]

Sir, you may find them in Duck-lane:
I sent them, with a load of books,
Last Monday, to the pastry-cook's.
To fancy they could live a year!
I find you're but a stranger here.
The Dean was famous in his time,
And had a kind of knack at rhyme.
His way of writing now is past:
The town has got a better taste."
Suppose me dead; and then suppose
A club assembled at the Rose;
Where, from discourse of this and that,
grow the subject of their chat.

I

And while they toss my name about,
With favour some, and some without;
One, quite indifferent in the cause,
My character impartial draws :-
"The Dean, if we believe report,
Was never ill received at court,
Although, ironically grave,

He shamed the fool, and lash'd the knave;

To steal a hint was never known,

But what he writ was all his own.

Yet malice never was his aim ;

He lash'd the vice, but spared the name.
No individual could resent,

Where thousands equally were meant :
His satire points at no defect,
But what all mortals may correct;
For he abhorr'd the senseless tribe

Who call it humour when they gibe."

66

Alas, poor Dean! his only scope

Was to be held a misanthrope.

This into general odium drew him;

Which if he liked, much good may't do him!

His zeal was not to lash our crimes,
But discontent against the times:
For, had we made him timely offers,
To raise his post, or fill his coffers,
Perhaps he might have truckled down,
Like other brethren of his gown;
For party he would scarce have bled :—
I say no more-because he's dead.—
What writings has he left behind?”

“I hear they're of a different kind : A few in verse; but most in prose

[ocr errors]

"Some high-flown pamphlets, I suppose :—
All scribbled in the worst of times,
To palliate his friend Oxford's crimes;
To praise Queen Anne, nay more, defend her,
As never favouring the Pretender :
Or libels yet conceal'd from sight,
Against the court to show his spite:
Perhaps his travels, part the third ;
A lie at every second word—
Offensive to a loyal ear :-

But not one sermon, you may swear."
“He knew a hundred pleasing stories,
With all the turns of Whigs and Tories:
Was cheerful to his dying day,
If friends would let him have his way.
"As for his works in verse or prose,

I own myself no judge of those.

Nor can I tell what critics thought them;
But this I know, all people bought them,
As with a moral view design'd
To please and to reform mankind :
And, if he often miss'd his aim,
The world must own it to their shame,
The praise is his, and theirs the blame.
He
gave the little wealth he had

To build a house for fools and mad;
To show, by one satiric touch,
No nation wanted it so much.
That kingdom he hath left his debtor ;
I wish it soon may have a better.
And, since you dread no further lashes,
Methinks you may forgive his ashes.”

217

SELECTION FROM BLAIR.

THE GRAVE.

WHILST Some affect the sun, and some the shade,
Some flee the city, some the hermitage,
Their aims as various as the roads they take
In journeying through life; the task be mine
To paint the gloomy horrors of the tomb;
The' appointed place of rendezvous, where all
These travellers meet. Thy succours I implore,
Eternal King! whose potent arm sustains

The keys of hell and death. The Grave, dread thing!
Men shiver when thou 'rt named nature appall'd
Shakes off her wonted firmness. Ah! how dark
Thy long-extended realms, and rueful wastes !
Where nought but silence reigns, and night, dark night,
Dark as was chaos ere the infant sun

Was roll'd together, or had tried its beams
Athwart the gloom profound! The sickly taper,
By glimmering through thy low-brow'd misty vaults,
Furr'd round with mouldy damps and ropy slime,
Lets fall a supernumerary horror,

And only serves to make thy night more irksome.
Well do I know thee by thy trusty yew,
Cheerless, unsocial plant! that loves to dwell
'Midst skulls and coffins, epitaphs and worms;
Where light-heel'd ghosts, and visionary shades,
Beneath the wan cold moon (as fame reports)
Embodied thick perform their mystic rounds.
No other merriment, dull tree! is thine.

See yonder hallow'd fane! the pious work
Of names once famed, now dubious or forgot,
And buried 'midst the wreck of things which were:
There lie interr'd the more illustrious dead.
The wind is up: hark! how it howls! methinks,
Till now I never heard a sound so dreary.

Doors creak, and windows clap, and night's foul bird,
Rook'd in the spire, screams loud; the gloomy aisles,
Black plaster'd, and hung round with shreds of scutcheons
And tatter'd coats of arms, send back the sound
Laden with heavier airs, from the low vaults,

L

The mansions of the dead.

Roused from their slumbers,

In grim array the grisly spectres rise,
Grin horrible, and obstinately sullen

Pass and repass, hush'd as the foot of night.

Again! the screech-owl shrieks: ungracious sound!
I'll hear no more; it makes one's blood run chill.
Quite round the pile, a row of reverend elms,
Coëval near with that, all ragged show,

Long lash'd by the rude winds: some rift half down
Their branchless trunks: others so thin a-top

That scarce two crows could lodge in the same tree.
Strange things, the neighbours say, have happen'd here:
Wild shrieks have issued from the hollow tombs;
Dead men have come again and walk'd about;
And the great bell has toll'd, unrung, untouch'd.
Such tales their cheer, at wake or gossipping,
When it draws near to witching time of night.

Oft in the lone church-yard at night I've seen,
By glimpse of moonshine, chequering through the trees,
The school-boy, with his satchel in his hand,
Whistling aloud to bear his courage up,

And lightly tripping o'er the long flat stones,
(With nettles skirted, and with moss o'ergrown,)
That tell in homely phrase who lie below;
Sudden he starts! and hears, or thinks he hears,
The sound of something purring at his heels:
Full fast he flies, and dares not look behind him,
Till out of breath he overtakes his fellows:
Who gather round, and wonder at the tale
Of horrid apparition, tall and ghastly,

That walks at dead of night, or takes his stand
O'er some new-open'd grave; and, strange to tell!
Evanishes at crowing of the cock.

eye,

The new-made widow, too, I've sometimes spied,
Sad sight! slow moving o'er the prostrate dead:
Listless she crawls along in doleful black,
While bursts of sorrow gush from either
Fast falling down her now untasted cheek.
Prone on the lonely grave of the dear man
She drops; whilst busy meddling memory,
In barbarous succession, musters up
The past endearments of their softer hours,
Tenacious of its theme.

Invidious Grave! how dost thou rend in sunder

« НазадПродовжити »