For water I must keep a clutter,
Or chide your wife for stinking butter;
Or getting such a deal of meat
As if you’d half the town to eat. 
That wife of yours, the devil’s in her,
I’ve told her of this way of dinner
Five hundred times, but all in vain—­
Here comes a rump of beef again: 
O that that wife of yours would burst—­
Get out, and serve the boarders first. 
Pox take ’em all for me—­I fret
So much, I shall not eat my meat—­
You know I’d rather have a slice.” 
“I know, dear sir, you are not nice;
You’ll have your dinner in a minute,
Here comes the plate and slices in it—­
Therefore no more, but take your place—­
Do you fall to, and I’ll say grace.”

VERSES ADDRESSED TO SWIFT AND TO HIS MEMORY

TO DR. SWIFT ON HIS BIRTH-DAY[1]

While I the godlike men of old,
In admiration wrapt, behold;
Revered antiquity explore,
And turn the long-lived volumes o’er;
Where Cato, Plutarch, Flaccus, shine
In every excellence divine;
I grieve that our degenerate days
Produce no mighty soul like these: 
Patriot, philosopher, and bard,
Are names unknown, and seldom heard. 
  “Spare your reflection,” Phoebus cries;
“’Tis as ungrateful as unwise: 
Can you complain, this sacred day,
That virtues or that arts decay? 
Behold, in Swift revived appears: 
The virtues of unnumber’d years;
Behold in him, with new delight,
The patriot, bard, and sage unite;
And know, Ierne in that name
Shall rival Greece and Rome in fame.”

[Footnote 1:  Written by Mrs. Pilkington, at the time when she wished to be introduced to the Dean.  The verses being presented to him by Dr. Delany, he kindly accepted the compliment.—­Scott.]

ON DR. SWIFT 1733

No pedant Bentley proud, uncouth,
Nor sweetening dedicator smooth,
In one attempt has ever dared
To sap, or storm, this mighty bard,
Nor Envy does, nor ignorance,
Make on his works the least advance. 
For this, behold! still flies afar
Where’er his genius does appear;
Nor has that aught to do above,
So meddles not with Swift and Jove. 
A faithful, universal fame
In glory spreads abroad his name;
Pronounces Swift, with loudest breath,
Immortal grown before his death.

TO THE REV.  DR. SWIFT, DEAN OF ST. PATRICK’S A BIRTH-DAY POEM.  NOV. 30, 1736

To you, my true and faithful friend,
These tributary lines I send,
Which every year, thou best of deans,
I’ll pay as long as life remains;
But did you know one half the pain
What work, what racking of the brain,
It costs me for a single clause,
How long I’m forced to think and pause;
How long I dwell upon a proem,
To introduce your birth-day poem,