Thus as they swim in mutual swill, the talk,
Vociferous at once from twenty tongues,

Reels fast from theme to theme; from horses, hounds, 540
To church or mistress, politics or ghost,

In endless mazes, intricate, perplex'd.

Meantime, with sudden interruption, loud,

The' impatient catch bursts from the joyous heart:
That moment, touch'd is each congenial soul;
And, opening in a full-mouth'd cry of joy,

The laugh, the slap, the jocund curse goes round;

While, from their slumbers shook, the kennell'd hounds
Mix in the music of the day again.

545

As when the tempest, that has vex'd the deep

550

The dark night long, with fainter murmurs falls;

So gradual sinks their mirth. Their feeble tongues,
Unable to take up the cumbrous word,

Lie quite dissolved. Before their maudlin eyes,
Seen dim and blue, the double tapers dance,
Like the sun wading through the misty sky.
Then, sliding soft, they drop. Confused above,
Glasses and bottles, pipes and gazetteers,
As if the table even itself was drunk,
Lie, a wet, broken scene: and wide, below,
Is heap'd the social slaughter; where astride
The lubber Power in filthy triumph sits,
Slumbrous, inclining still from side to side,

And steeps them drench'd in potent sleep till morn.

555

560

Perhaps some doctor, of tremendous paunch,
Awful and deep, a black abyss of drink,

565

Laments the weakness of these latter times.

Outlives them all; and, from his buried flock
Retiring, full of rumination sad,

570

W

With

Bat if the rougher sex by this fierce sport
barried wild, let not such horrid joy

in the bosom of the British fair.
the spirit of the chase from them!
courage, unbeseeming skill,

Relentles

His daring

he fence, to rein the prancing steed;
whip, the masculine attire;

Calls them to g

aghen to the sense, and all

of their sex is lost!

A to dissolve at woe;
every word, to wave

575

580