On Poetry, a Rhapsody
Verses sent to the Dean on his Birthday
Epigram by Mr. Bowyer
On Psyche
The Dean and Duke
Written by Swift on his own Deafness
The Dean’s Complaint
The Dean’s manner of living
Epigram by Mr. Bowyer
Verses made for Fruit Women
On Rover, a Lady’s Spaniel
Epigrams on Windows
To Janus, on New Year’s Day
A Motto for Mr. Jason Hasard
To a Friend
Catullus de Lesbia
On a Curate’s complaint of hard duty
To Betty, the Grisette
Epigram from the French
Epigram
Epigram added by Stella
Joan cudgels Ned
Verses on two modern Poets
Epitaph on General Gorges and Lady Meath
Verses on I know not what
Dr. Swift to himself
An Answer to a Friend’s question
Epitaph
Epitaph
Verses written during Lord Carteret’s administration
An Apology to Lady Carteret
The Birth of Manly Virtue
On Paddy’s Character of the “Intelligencer”
An Epistle to Lord Carteret by Delany
An Epistle upon an Epistle
A Libel on Dr. Delany and Lord Carteret
To Dr. Delany
Directions for a Birthday Song
The Pheasant and the Lark by Delany
Answer to Delany’s Fable
Dean Smedley’s Petition to the Duke of Grafton
The Duke’s Answer by Swift
Parody on a character of Dean Smedley

INTRODUCTION

Dr. Johnson, in his “Life of Swift,” after citing with approval Delany’s character of him, as he describes him to Lord Orrery, proceeds to say:  “In the poetical works there is not much upon which the critic can exercise his powers.  They are often humorous, almost always light, and have the qualities which recommend such compositions, easiness and gaiety.  They are, for the most part, what their author intended.  The diction is correct, the numbers are smooth, and the rhymes exact.  There seldom occurs a hard laboured expression or a redundant epithet; all his verses exemplify his own definition of a good style—­they consist of ‘proper words in proper places.’”

Of his earliest poems it is needless to say more than that if nothing better had been written by him than those Pindaric Pieces, after the manner of Cowley—­then so much in vogue—­the remark of Dryden, “Cousin Swift, you will never be a Poet,” would have been fully justified.  But conventional praise and compliments were foreign to his nature, for his strongest characteristic was his intense sincerity.  He says of himself that about that time he had writ and burnt and writ again upon all manner of subjects more than perhaps any man in England; and it is certainly remarkable that in so doing his true genius was not sooner developed, for it was not till he became chaplain in Lord Berkeley’s household that his satirical humour was first displayed—­at least in verse—­in “Mrs. Frances Harris’ Petition.”—­His great prose satires, “The Tale of a Tub,” and “Gulliver’s Travels,” though planned, were reserved to a later time.—­In other forms of poetry he soon afterwards greatly excelled, and the title of poet cannot be refused to the author of “Baucis and Philemon”; the verses on “The Death of Dr. Swift”; the “Rhapsody on Poetry”; “Cadenus and Vanessa”; “The Legion Club”; and most of the poems addressed to Stella, all of which pieces exhibit harmony, invention, and imagination.