A Satire Anthology - Carolyn Wells 3 стр.

ALL the worlds a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits, and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurses arms:
Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel,
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school: And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woful ballad
Made to his mistress eyebrow: Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannons mouth: And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lind,
With eyes severe, and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part: The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipperd pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose, and pouch on side;
His youthful hose well savd, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound: Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

TO thee, whose forehead swells with roses,
Whose most haunted bower
Gives life and scent to every flower,
Whose most adoréd name encloses
Things abstruse, deep, and divine;
Whose yellow tresses shine
Bright as Eoan fire:
Oh, me thy priest inspire!
For I to thee and thine immortal name,
In in in golden tunes,
For I to thee and thine immortal name
In sacred raptures flowing, flowing, swimming, swimming:
In sacred raptures swimming,
Immortal name, game, dame, tame, lame, lame, lame,
(Foh) hath, shame, proclaim, oh
In sacred raptures flowing, will proclaim. (No!)
Oh, me thy priest inspire!
For I to thee and thine immortal name,
In flowing numbers filled with spright and flame,
(Good! good!)
In flowing numbers filled with spright and flame.

DON SURLY, to aspire the glorious name
Of a great man, and to be thought the same,
Makes serious use of all great trade he knows.
He speaks to men with a rhinocerotes nose,
Which he thinks great; and so reads verses too;
And that is done as he saw great men do.
He has tympanies of business in his face,
And can forget mens names with a great grace.
He will both argue and discourse in oaths,
Both which are great, and laugh at ill-made clothes;
Thats greater yet, to cry his own up neat.
He doth, at meals, alone his pheasant eat,
Which is main greatness; and at his still board
He drinks to no man: thats, too, like a lord.
He keeps anothers wife, which is a spice
Of solemn greatness; and he dares, at dice,
Blaspheme God greatly; or some poor hind beat,
That breathes in his dogs way: and this is great.
Nay, more, for greatness sake he will be one
May hear my epigrams, but like of none.
Surly, use other arts; these only can
Style thee a most great fool, but no great man.

I  WAS a scholar: seven useful springs
Did I deflower in quotations
Of crossd opinions bout the soul of man;
The more I learnt, the more I learnt to doubt.
Delight my spaniel slept, whilst I bausd leaves,
Tossd oer the dunces, pored on the old print
Of titled words: and still my spaniel slept.
Whilst I wasted lamp-oil, baited my flesh,
Shrunk up my veins: and still my spaniel slept.
And still I held converse with Zabarell,
Aquinas, Scotus, and the musty saw
Of antick Donate: still my spaniel slept.
Still on went I; first, an sit anima;
Then, an it were mortal. Oh, hold, hold! at that
Theyre at brain buffets, fell by the ears amain
Pell-mell together; still my spaniel slept.
Then, whether t were corporeal, local, fixt,
Ex traduce, but whether t had free will
Or no, hot philosphers
Stood banding factions, all so strongly propt,
I staggerd, knew not which was firmer part,
But thought, quoted, read, observd, and pryed,
Stufft noting-books: and still my spaniel slept.
At length he wakd, and yawned; and by yon sky,
For aught I know he knew as much as I.

SHALL I, wasting in despair,
Die because a womans fair?
Or my cheeks make pale with care
Cause anothers rosy are?
Be she fairer than the day,
Or the flowery meads in May,
If she be not so to me,
What care I how fair she be?

Shall my foolish heart be pined
Cause I see a woman kind;
Or a well-disposéd nature
Joinéd with a lovely feature?
Be she meeker, kinder, than
Turtle-dove or pelican,
If she be not so to me,
What care I how kind she be?

Shall a womans virtues move
Me to perish for her love?
Or her merits value known
Make me quite forget my own?
Be she with that goodness blest
Which may gain her name of Best,
If she seem not such to me,
What care I how good she be?

Cause her fortune seems too high,
Shall I play the fool and die?
Those that bear a noble mind
Where they want of riches find,
Think what with them they would do
Who without them dare to woo;
And unless that mind I see,
What care I though great she be?

Great or good, or kind or fair,
I will neer the more despair;
If she loves me, this believe,
I will die ere she shall grieve;
If she slight me when I woo,
I can scorn and let her go;
For if she be not for me,
What care I for whom she be?

OUT upon it! I have loved
Three whole days together,
And am like to love three more,
If it prove fair weather.

Time shall moult away his wings
Ere he shall discover
In the whole wide world again
Such a constant lover.

But the spite on t is, no praise
Is due at all to me:
Love with me had made no stays,
Had it any been but she.

Had it any been but she,
And that very face,
There had been at least ere this
A dozen dozen in her place.

WHY so pale and wan, fond lover?
Prithee, why so pale?
Will, when looking well cant move her,
Looking ill prevail?
Prithee, why so pale?

Why so dull and mute, young sinner?
Prithee, why so mute?
Will, when speaking well cant win her,
Saying nothing dot?
Prithee, why so mute?

Quit, quit, for shame! this will not move,
This cannot take her;
If of herself she will not love,
Nothing can make her:
The devil take her!

WHY didst thou choose that cursed sin,
Hypocrisy, to set up in?
Because it is the thrivingst calling,
The only saints bell that rings all in;
In which all churches are concernd,
And is the easiest to be learnd.

Quoth he, I am resolvd to be
Thy scholar in this mystery;
And therefore first desire to know
Some principles on which you go.
What makes a knave a child of God,
And one of us? A livelihood.
What renders beating out of brains,
And murder, godliness? Great gains.
Whats tender conscience? Tis a botch
That will not bear the gentlest touch;
But, breaking out, despatches more
Than th epidemicalst plague-sore.
What makes y encroach upon our trade,
And damn all others? To be paid.
Whats orthodox and true believing,
Against a conscience? A good living.
What makes rebelling against kings
A good old cause? Administrings.
What makes all doctrines plain and clear?
About two hundred pounds a year.
And that which was provd true before,
Provd false again? Two hundred more.
What makes the breaking of all oaths
A holy duty? Food and clothes.
What, laws and freedom, persecution?
Being out of power and contribution.
What makes a church a den of thieves?
A dean and chapter, and white sleeves.
And what would serve, if these were gone,
To make it orthodox? Our own.
What makes morality a crime,
The most notorious of the time;
Morality, which both the saints
And wicked, too, cry out against?
Cause grace and virtue are within
Prohibited degrees of kin;
And therefore no true saint allows
They shall be suffered to espouse.

A  COUNTRY that draws fifty foot of water,
In which men live as in the hold of Nature,
And when the sea does in upon them break,
And drowns a province, does but spring a leak;
That always ply the pump, and never think
They can be safe but at the rate they stink;
They live as if they had been run aground,
And, when they die, are cast away and drowned;
That dwell in ships, like swarms of rats, and prey
Upon the goods all nations fleets convey;
And when their merchants are blown up and crackt,
Whole towns are cast away in storms, and wreckt;
That feed, like cannibals, on other fishes,
And serve their cousin-germans up in dishes:
A land that rides at anchor, and is moored,
In which they do not live, but go aboard.

FOR his religion it was fit
To match his learning and his wit:
Twas Presbyterian true blue;
For he was of that stubborn crew
Of errant saints, whom all men grant
To be the true Church militant;
Such as do build their faith upon
The holy text of pike and gun;
Decide all controversies by
Infallible artillery,
And prove their doctrine orthodox,
By apostolic blows and knocks;
Call fire, and sword, and desolation,
A godly, thorough reformation.
Which always must be carried on,
And still be doing, never done;
As if religion were intended
For nothing else but to be mended;
A sect whose chief devotion lies
In odd perverse antipathies;
In falling out with that or this,
And finding somewhat still amiss;
More peevish, cross, and splenetic,
Than dog distract or monkey sick;
That with more care keep holy-day
The wrong, than others the right way;
Compound for sins they are inclind to,
By damning those they have no mind to;
Still so perverse and opposite,
As if they worshipped God for spite;
The self-same thing they will abhor
One way, and long another for;
Free-will they one way disavow,
Another, nothing else allow;
All piety consists therein
In them, in other men all sin;
Rather than fail, they will defy
That which they love most tenderly;
Quarrel with mincd pies, and disparage
Their best and dearest friend, plum porridge;
Fat pig and goose itself oppose,
And blaspheme custard through the nose.

A  LAND where one may pray with cursed intent,
Oh, may they never suffer banishment!
Had Cain been Scot, God would have changd his doom
Not forcd him wander, but confind him home.
Like Jews they spread and as infection fly,
As if the devil had ubiquity;
Hence tis they live as rovers, and defy
This or that place, rags of geography;
Theyre citizens o th world, theyre all in all;
Scotlands a nation epidemical.
And yet they ramble not to learn the mode
How to be drest, or how to lisp abroad
No, the Scots errant fight, and fight to eat;
Their ostrich-stomachs make their swords their meat;
Nature with Scots as tooth-drawers hath dealt,
Who use to string their teeth upon their belt
Lord! what a godly thing is want of shirts!
How a Scotch stomach and no meat converts!
They wanted food and raiment; so they took
Religion for their seamstress and their cook.
Unmask them well, their honours and estate,
As well as conscience, are sophisticate.
Shrive but their title and their moneys poize,
A laird and twenty pence pronouncd with noise,
When construd but for a plain yeoman go,
And a good sober twopence, and well so.
Hence, then, you proud impostors! get you gone,
You Picts in gentry and devotion,
You scandal to the stock of verse a race
Able to bring the gibbet in disgrace!
Hyperbolus by suffering did traduce
The ostracism, and shamd it out of use.
The Indian that heaven did forswear,
Because he heard some Spaniards were there,
Had he but known what Scots in hell had been,
He would, Erasmus-like, have hung between.
My muse hath done. A voyder for the nonce,
I wrong the devil should I pick their bones;
That dish is his; for when the Scots decease,
Hell, like their nation, feeds on barnacles.
A Scot when from the gallow-tree got loose,
Drops into Styx, and turns a Soland goose.

WHY should you swear I am forsworn,
Since thine I vowed to be?
Lady, it is already morn,
And twas last night I swore to thee
That fond impossibility.

Have I not loved thee much and long,
A tedious twelve hours space?
I must all other beauties wrong,
And rob thee of a new embrace,
Could I still dote upon thy face.

Not but all joy in thy brown hair
By others may be found;
But I must search the black and fair,
Like skilful mineralists that sound
For treasure in unploughed-up ground.

Then, if when I have loved my round,
Thou provst the pleasant she;
With spoils of meaner beauties crowned,
I laden will return to thee,
Even sated with variety.