SWIFT'S

POEM S.

VOLUME I.

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VIR

Written at Moor-park, June, 1689.

I.

IRTUE, the greatest of all monarchies !
Till, its firft emperor rebellious man
Depos'd from off his feat,

It fell, and broke with its own weight
Into small states and principalities,
By many a petty lord poffefs'd,

But ne'er fince feated in one fingle breast!
'Tis you who muft this land fubdue,
The mighty conqueft's left for you,
The conqueft and discovery too;
Search out this Utopian ground,
Virtue's Terra Incognita,
Where none ever led the way,

Nor ever fince but in descriptions found,

Like the philofopher's stone,

W rules to fearch it, yet obtain'd by none.

VOL. I.

B

II. We

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II.

We have too long been led aftray;
Too long have our misguided fouls been taught
With rules from mufty morals brought,
'Tis you muft put us in the way;
Let us (for fhame!) no more be fed
With antique reliques of the dead,
The gleanings of philosophy,
Philofophy, the lumber of the schools,
The roguery of alchemy;

And we, the bubbled fools,

Spend all our prefent life in hopes of golden rules.

III.

But what does our proud ignorance Learning call ?
We oddly Plato's paradox make good,
Our knowledge is but mere remembrance all;
Remembrance is our treasure and our food;
Nature's fair table-book, our tender fouls,
We fcrawl all o'er with old and empty rules,
Stale memorandums of the fchools:
For Learning's mighty treasures look
In that deep grave a book;

Think that the there does all her treasures hide,
And that her troubled ghost still haunts there fince the dy’d.
Confine her walks to colleges and fchools;

Her priefts, her train, and followers show
As if they all were spectres too!
They purchafe knowledge at th' expence
Of common breeding, common fense,
And grow at once fcholars and fools;

3

Affe&t

Affect ill-manner'd pedantry,

Rudenefs, ill-nature, incivility,

And, fick with dregs of knowledge grown,
Which greedily they fwallow down,
Still cast it up, and nauseate company.

IV.

Curst be the wretch! nay doubly curst!
(If it may lawful be

To curfe our greatest enemy)

Who learnt himself that herefy first

(Which fince has feiz'd on all the rest)

That knowledge forfeits all humanity;
Taught us, like Spaniards, to be proud and poor,
And fling our scraps before our door!

Thrice happy you have 'fcap'd this general peft;
Those mighty epithets, learn'd, good, and great,
Which we ne'er join'd before, but in romances meet,
We find in you at last united grown.

You cannot be compar'd to one :

I muft, like him that painted Venus' face,
Borrow from every one a grace;

Virgil and Epicurus will not do,

Their courting a retreat like you, Unless I put in Cæfar's learning too: Your happy frame at once controls This great triumvirate of fouls.

V.

Let not old Rome boast Fabius' fate;
He fav'd his country by delays,

But you by peace.
You bought it at a cheaper rate;

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