THEY lie, dear Ned, who say thy brain is barren,

      When deep conceits, like maggots, breed in carrion.

      Thy stumbling foundered jade can trot as high

      As any other Pegasus can fly.

      So the dull eel moves nimbler in the mud

      Than all the swift-finned racers of the flood.

      As skilful divers to the bottom fall

      Sooner than those who cannot swim at all,

      So in this way of writing, without thinking,

      Thou hast a strange alacrity in sinking.

      SAINT ANTHONY at church

      Was left in the lurch,

      So he went to the ditches

      And preached to the fishes.

      They wriggled their tails,

      In the sun glanced their scales.

      The carps, with their spawn,

      Are all thither drawn;

      Have opened their jaws,

      Eager for each clause.

      No sermon beside

      Had the carps so edified.

      Sharp-snouted pikes,

      Who keep fighting like tikes,

      Now swam up harmonious

      To hear Saint Antonius.

      No sermon beside

      Had the pikes so edified.

      And that very odd fish,

      Who loves fast-days, the cod-fish —

      The stock-fish, I mean —

      At the sermon was seen.

      No sermon beside

      Had the cods so edified.

      Good eels and sturgeon,

      Which aldermen gorge on,

      Went out of their way

      To hear preaching that day.

      No sermon beside

      Had the eels so edified.

      Crabs and turtles also,

      Who always move low,

      Made haste from the bottom

      As if the devil had got ’em.

      No sermon beside

      The crabs so edified.

      Fish great and fish small,

      Lords, lackeys, and all,

      Each looked at the preacher

      Like a reasonable creature.

      At God’s word,

      They Anthony heard.

      The sermon now ended,

      Each turned and descended;

      The pikes went on stealing,

      The eels went on eeling.

      Much delighted were they,

      But preferred the old way.

      The crabs are backsliders,

      The stock-fish thick-siders,

      The carps are sharp-set —

      All the sermon forget.

      Much delighted were they,

      But preferred the old way.

      SPEAK, satire; for there’s none can tell like thee

      Whether ’tis folly, pride, or knavery

      That makes this discontented land appear

      Less happy now in times of peace than war?

      Why civil feuds disturb the nation more

      Than all our bloody wars have done before?

      Fools out of favour grudge at knaves in place,

      And men are always honest in disgrace;

      The court preferments make men knaves in course,

      But they which would be in them would be worse.

      ’Tis not at foreigners that we repine,

      Would foreigners their perquisites resign;

      The grand contention’s plainly to be seen,

      To get some men put out, and some put in.

      For this our senators make long harangues,

      And florid members whet their polished tongues.

      Statesmen are always sick of one disease,

      And a good pension gives them present ease;

      That’s the specific makes them all content

      With any king and any government.

      Good patriots at court abuses rail,

      And all the nation’s grievances bewail;

      But when the sovereign’s balsam’s once applied,

      The zealot never fails to change his side;

      And when he must the golden key resign,

      The railing spirit comes about again.

      Who shall this bubbled nation disabuse,

      While they their own felicities refuse,

      Who the wars have made such mighty pother,

      And now are falling out with one another:

      With needless fears the jealous nation fill,

      And always have been saved against their will:

      Who fifty millions sterling have disbursed,

      To be with peace and too much plenty cursed:

      Who their old monarch eagerly undo,

      And yet uneasily obey the new?

      Search, satire, search; a deep incision