To agitate Io,* and which Ezekiel † mentions Has a loud trumpet like the scarabee; Each able to make a thousand wounds, and each He sees fair things in many hideous shapes, He has eleven feet with which he crawls, MAMMON. But if This Gadfly should drive Iona hither? *The Prometheus Bound of Eschylus. † And the Lord whistled for the gadfly out of Ethiopia, and for the bee out of Egypt, &c.-EZEKIEL. PURGANAX. Gods! what an if! but there is my gray rat, And he shall creep into her dressing-room, MAMMON. My dear friend, where are your wits? as if She does not always toast a piece of cheese, And bait the trap? and rats, when lean enough To crawl through such chinks PURGANAX. But my leech-a leech Fit to suck blood, with lubricous round rings, Capaciously expatiative, which make His little body like a red balloon, As full of blood as that of hydrogen, Sucked from men's hearts; insatiably he sucks And clings and pulls-a horse-leech, whose deep maw The plethoric King Swellfoot could not fill, MAMMON. This For Queen Iona might suffice, and less; My eldest son Chrysaor, because he Attended public meetings, and would always And other topics, ultra-radical; And have entailed my estate, called the Fool's And funds, in fairy-money, bonds, and bills, PURGANAX. A good match! MAMMON. A high connection, Purganax. The bridegroom Of Hounslow Heath, Tyburn, and the New Drop, * "If one should marry a gallows, and beget young gibbets, I never saw one so prone."-CYMBELINE. The young playing at hanging, the elder learning And reads a select chapter in the Bible [A most tremendous humming is heard. PURGANAX. Ha! what do I hear? Enter GADFly. MAMMON. Your Gadfly, as it seems, is tired of gadding. GADFLY. Hum, hum, hum! [scalps From the lakes of the Alps, and the cold gray Of the mountains, I come! Hum, hum, hum! From Morocco and Fez, and the high palaces From the temples divine of old Palestine, From Athens and Rome, With a ha! and a hum! I come, I come! VOL. III. All inn-doors and windows Were open to me! I saw all that sin does, 2 That burn in the night by the curtained bedThe impudent lamps! for they blushed not red. Dinging and singing, From slumber I rung her, Loud as the clank of an ironmonger! Far, far, far, With the trump of my lips, and the sting at my hips, I drove her—afar! Far, far, far, From city to city, abandoned of pity, She is here in her car, From afar, and afar. I have stung her and wrung her! The venom is working; And if you had hung her With canting and quirking, She could not be deader than she will be soon. I have hummed her and drummed her From place to place, till at last I have dumbed her. Hum, hum, hum! |