TO THE DEAN OF ST. PATRICK’S

Dear Sir, Since you in humble wise
  Have made a recantation,
From your low bended knees arise;
  I hate such poor prostration.

’Tis bravery that moves the brave,
  As one nail drives another;
If you from me would mercy have,
  Pray, Sir, be such another.

You that so long maintain’d the field
  With true poetic vigour;
Now you lay down your pen and yield,
  You make a wretched figure.

Submit, but do’t with sword in hand,
  And write a panegyric
Upon the man you cannot stand;
  I’ll have it done in lyric: 

That all the boys I teach may sing
  The achievements of their Chiron;
What conquests my stern looks can bring
  Without the help of iron.

A small goose-quill, yclep’d a pen,
  From magazine of standish
Drawn forth, ’s more dreadful to the Dean,
  Than any sword we brandish.

My ink’s my flash, my pen’s my bolt;
  Whene’er I please to thunder,
I’ll make you tremble like a colt,
  And thus I’ll keep you under. 
                             THOMAS SHERIDAN.

TO THE DEAN OF ST. PATRICK’S

Dear Dean, I’m in a sad condition,
  I cannot see to read or write;
Pity the darkness of thy Priscian,
  Whose days are all transform’d to night.

My head, though light, ’s a dungeon grown,
  The windows of my soul are closed;
Therefore to sleep I lay me down,
  My verse and I are both composed.

Sleep, did I say? that cannot be;
  For who can sleep, that wants his eyes? 
My bed is useless then to me,
  Therefore I lay me down to rise.

Unnumber’d thoughts pass to and fro
  Upon the surface of my brain;
In various maze they come and go,
  And come and go again.

So have you seen in sheet burnt black,
  The fiery sparks at random run;
Now here, now there, some turning back
  Some ending where they just begun. 
                        THOMAS SHERIDAN.

AN ANSWER, BY DELANY, TO THOMAS SHERIDAN

Dear Sherry, I’m sorry for your bloodsheded sore eye,
And the more I consider your case, still the more I
Regret it, for see how the pain on’t has wore ye. 
Besides, the good Whigs, who strangely adore ye,
In pity cry out, “He’s a poor blinded Tory.” 
But listen to me, and I’ll soon lay before ye
A sovereign cure well attested in Gory. 
First wash it with ros, that makes dative rori,
Then send for three leeches, and let them all gore ye;
Then take a cordial dram to restore ye,
Then take Lady Judith, and walk a fine boree,
Then take a glass of good claret ex more,
Then stay as long as you can ab uxore;
And then if friend Dick[1] will but ope your back-door,