god,
        This volatile mercury,
  The subtile spirit all flies up in fume;
  Nor shall the bubbled virtuoso find
More than fade insipid mixture left behind.[6]
  While thus I write, vast shoals of critics come,
And on my verse pronounce their saucy doom;
The Muse like some bright country virgin shows
Fallen by mishap among a knot of beaux;
They, in their lewd and fashionable prate,
Rally her dress, her language, and her gait;
Spend their base coin before the bashful maid,
Current like copper, and as often paid: 
She, who on shady banks has joy’d to sleep
Near better animals, her father’s sheep,
Shamed and amazed, beholds the chattering throng,
To think what cattle she is got among;
But with the odious smell and sight annoy’d,
In haste she does th’offensive herd avoid. 
  ’Tis time to bid my friend a long farewell,
The muse retreats far in yon crystal cell;
Faint inspiration sickens as she flies,
Like distant echo spent, the spirit dies. 
  In this descending sheet you’ll haply find
Some short refreshment for your weary mind,
Nought it contains is common or unclean,
And once drawn up, is ne’er let down again.[7]

[Footnote 1:  Where Swift lived with Sir William Temple, who had bought an estate near Farnham, called Compton Hall, which he afterwards named Moor Park.  See “Prose Works,” vol. xi, 378.—­W.  E. B.]

[Footnote 2:  Dryden.  See “The Rehearsal,” and post, p. 43.—­W.  E. B.]

[Footnote 3:  Will’s coffee-house in Russell Street, Covent Garden, where the wits of that time used to assemble.  See “The Tatler,” No.  I, and notes, edit. 1786.—­W.  E. B.]

[Footnote 4:  To this resolution Swift always adhered; for of the infinite multitude of libellers who personally attacked him, there is not the name mentioned of any one of them throughout his works; and thus, together with their writings, have they been consigned to eternal oblivion.—­S.]

[Footnote 5:  This alludes to Sir William Temple, to whom he presently gives the name of Apollo.—­W.  E. B.]

[Footnote 6:  Out of an Ode I writ, inscribed “The Poet.”  The rest of it is lost.—­Swift.]

[Footnote 7:  For an account of Congreve, see Leigh Hunt’s edition of “Wycherley, Congreve, Vanbrugh, and Farquhar.”—­W.  E. B.]

OCCASIONED BY SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE’S LATE ILLNESS AND RECOVERY

WRITTEN IN DECEMBER, 1693

Strange to conceive, how the same objects strike
At distant hours the mind with forms so like! 
Whether in time, Deduction’s broken chain
Meets, and salutes her sister link again;
Or haunted Fancy, by a circling flight,
Comes back with joy to its own seat at night;
Or whether dead Imagination’s ghost
Oft hovers where alive it haunted most;